Catherine Marshall visits the studio of Hennessy Craig prize-winner Mollie Douthit as she prepares for a solo exhibition at the Royal Hibernian Academy in 2015

What do we see when we look at a painting? We may have thought that when Rene Magritte produced his painting of a pipe, famously overlaid with the words ‘Ceci n’est pasune pipe’, we had finally learned to differentiate between the painting and the thing it appears to represent. Life is never that simple. The paintings of Mollie Douthit ask us to re-examine the question. So what is a painting? The novelist Ali Smith, shortlisted for the 2014 Man Booker Prize raises issues about the limitations of the novel as an art form. She believes that a painting on the other hand is a ‘perfect narrative structure’.’
The new Lexicon is a worthy member of Dublin’s distinguished group of public libraires, writes James Howley in his appraisal of the controversial new building.
It is the implication of something beyond a simple landscape that makes Martin Gale’s art so compelling, writes Alison FitzGerald as his exhibition continues at Taylor Galleries, Dublin