Valerie Hegarty’s work is one of my favorites in this exhibition “Black Mirror”,  because it’s so different from everything else. It’s so special.

When people talk about art, it is inevitable to add the word “creation” to the end. People think of art as something to be “created”,  but for artist Valerie Hegarty, the most interesting thing is not the creation, but the destruction.

This painting is just like a boat overturned by a waterfall. From the inside of the work, we can still imagine how beautiful the painting is when it hadn’t been destroyed. Waterfalls, rainbows, and turquoise river water. But the withered branches in the lower right corner, the black ruins at the lower left, and the paint falling from the frame tell us that this is reality.

Valerie Hegarty, Niagara Falls, 2007

Foam core, paper, paint, gel medium, glue , 150 x 300 x 65 cm

Various twisted works convey the traces of war, the destruction of nature, this painting seems to be more than just a painting, it’s like the name of the painting and happening in front of my eyes. Her reflections on human development and discontent seem to have spilled over into the frame. Not all beautiful, whole things can be called art

Valerie Hegarty, Still Burning, 2007

Canvas, paint, foamcore, paper, gel medium, 198.1 x 152.4 x 3.8 cm