West Rock Branches, 2012. Valerie Hegarty (b. 1967). Wood, wire, epoxy, archival print on canvas, acrylic paint, gel mediums, sand, glue, hardware. 65 x 48 x 11 in. Paul W. Zimmerman Purchase Fund.
If you walking into an exhibition of work by Valerie Hegarty, you might think there has been a terrible accident. Valerie Hegarty is a American artist who good at making art with something beautiful and decadent, and of course, making them unexpected. She’s work is characterized by canvases and antiques that have been burned, ripped, cracked, shot at or otherwise destroyed, maybe for Valerie Hegarty, the joy of her work lies in its destruction rather than its making.
The painting of this artwork is about bucolic landscape which is an old painting in the church and the main materials of the frame are made by metal and wood. The whole artwork is falsified their ruination by Valerie Hegarty, like it had been burned and no one care for many years, making the painting and it’s frame integrated with natural. The contrast between the painting and the frame, for me, is like emphasized the irony of contradiction between utopian and the reality and the pessimistic feeling of the future.
We all have a dream of our own utopian; however, not many people dare to chase their dream. This artwork shows the feeling of struggling between the reality and the utopian.
This artwork could be called as a “derivative work”. Some artists think that ‘what I created is mine’. This tells the relationship between creations and copy right, which is generally agreed by the industry. But we should not confuse derivative with plagiarize. A derivative work does not simply copy the other’s work, but to tell its own story with the ideas from the works before and feature it with the creators’ own creativity. The original painting is about peace and bucolic landscape. Valerie Hegarty adds new elements in her artworks, like changing the materials of the frame, to make it release decadent sentiments which can create a new feeling or experience for the audience. The piece like this may leads to many opinions and discussions about its own integrity, but true art shaking things up a bit.
All in all, some people may not agree, but imitation could be the sincerest form of flattery.