These two bright works by the poet Paula Meehan were purchased from the Olivier Cornet Gallery in December 2018. The buyer's wish was to donate them to the Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI) which was to open shortly. We were extremely pleased to oblige and it was such a privilege to deliver them to the museum and to be given a small tour by director Simon O'Connor. The museum opened its doors a few month later, in September 2019.

Monto Karma III and IV were part of 'Drawing on Joyce', our 2018 Bloomsday group show which featured work by Nickie Hayden, Eoin Mac Lochlainn, Maser, Paula Meehan and Robert Russell. These 5 artists charted Dublin, mapping the fabric of the city, in search of traces of Joyce’s multi-layered novel Ulysses. The exhibition was organised and curated by the Olivier Cornet Gallery in partnership with Dublin Sketchers and The James Joyce Centre Dublin. It was such a privilege to see the exhibition included in the main programme of the James Joyce Centre’s 2018 Bloomsday Festival.

We were also very pleased when the OPW decided to acquire 3 other Monto Karma paintings by Paula Meehan for the Irish State Art Collection.

Paula Meehan's notes on her Monto Karma series of paintings were as follows:

"I will show work Monto Karma that desires to colour the Monto area where my grandparents were born: Hannah Ralph on Lower Tyrone Street and Walter Meehan on Mabbot Street (now James Joyce Street), depicted in Ulysses as Nighttown. The images I have of their world are black and white (Darkest Dublin Collection) and I want to return their nurture with simple gestures that honour their colourful childhoods."

Monto Karma VII and VIII are part of our Bloomsday 2021 virtual group show, "Hold to the now, the here, through which all future plunges to the past", a look at the last 5 years of Bloomsday exhibitions at the Olivier Cornet Gallery.