Paintings Express Woman's Freedom

Featured in the Viet Nam News on Wednesday the 30 August 2006

By; Võ Le Hong

The human instinct is often destroyed in the race toward achievement, but it can often run free like a wild horse. In the paintings of Irish Artist Ciarna Hackett being shown at Himiko Café Art Gallery in HCM City, she depicts this spirit powerfully.
This is Hackett's first solo exhibition at the gallery, which specialises in young artists. Though the gallery sports a Japanese name, it is owned by a Vietnamese woman named Nguyen Kim Hoang.
Hackett said her 16 paintings were inspired by her last year and a half in Viet Nam.
"Most of these pieces are about the experience of painting, the knowledge of painting and the joy of painting, but women and desire are also the inspiration for some of the imagery" she said.
"Life and desire and the power of women lie in their bodies. The imagery comes from how women carry such power and freedom within them, but the desire to express this can sometimes be stifled and destroyed by their lives" she said.
"If art is feeling, Ciarna is successful. A couple of pictures in the realistic school style are rather simple, but they make a strong feeling on first sight. But the abstract ones are sublime. They look like a symphony and can keep viewers' attention." Said Nguyen Quang Vinh, artist and lecturer at HCM City's Fine Art University.
The exhibition continues until September 3 at Himiko Visual Saloon at 88 Huynh Tinh Cua Street in District 3 in HCM City. An alternative address for the gallery is 60/2 Ly Chinh Thang Street also in District 3.

-VSN