Eamon Blog

Brian Hackett: The Discipline of Bronze

Brian Hackett’s bronze sculptures arrive at Kilmorna with the discipline of long metalwork practice behind them: restrained, open and alive to proportion.

On Friday 10 July, The Kilmorna Collection will present a solo exhibition of bronze sculpture by Brian Hackett.

Hackett works from Ballylongford, but his practice has taken the long route to sculpture. For more than three decades he has worked as a jeweller, making objects in silver and other metals where proportion, finish and balance are exposed at close range. Jewellery offers nowhere to hide. A line that is too heavy remains too heavy. A curve that fails to resolve itself cannot be rescued by scale or explanation.

That education is present in the bronzes.

The first impression is of simplicity. A slender form rises, turns or opens into the space around it. A curve appears to have been drawn in the air and then given weight. But the work is not simple in the casual sense. It is pared back. Every decision has survived a process of removal.