Relax ............ you do not have to understand art to buy it any more than you have to understand music, fashion design, the workings of the internal combustion engine or radio waves to buy a CD, some new clothes, a car or to watch and enjoy television. When you let art into your life, it changes everything. Original art will change the energy in your environment and have a positive effect on you. It can raise your self-esteem, improve your creativity, cause you to change t

'It has bothered me all my life that I don't paint like everyone else' Henri Matisse was born in 1869 and died in 1954. His statement now sounds very odd doesn't it. These days everyone is striving to be distinctly different and to stand out from the crowd, somehow. In Henri's prime, conventionality must have been the measure of success. He was born at the dawn of 'Impressionism' which was horribly criticized by the establishment. I guess all the Impressionist painters strug

Enormous progress has been made to protect Vietnam's endangered wildlife since I arrived here in 2012. Traffickers are being jailed and live animals are being rescued from situations. This is my latest painting of an endangered species. The little pangolin is the only mammal with scales and it is the most trafficked mammal in the world. I hope to raise awareness of its plight through my work and I make a donation to Vietnam's wildlife organisations with each sale. We can all

Local artist Phan Thanh Minh has been an artist in Hoi An for over 20 years. He trained as an architect in Saigon but returned ot his home town to paint and what came out, on his canvasses, was a lot of emotion, a lot of anger and discontentment. He is not alone in that. The young artists of Hanoi and Saigon have been trying to express sadness at the loss of traditional values as Vietnam becomes more and more wetsernized, anger at social inequality in a socialist republic nat

Developing an unique signature is very important for artists. Your work can be recognised by the way it is signed so it is important to develope a signature that is difficult to copy. I work in vietnam which is the land of copy artists ...... so this a real issue for me! Here is how I do it........... #art #painting #artist #tips #video #vietnam #tiger #fire #chinesehoroscope #buyart #marchgallery #bridgetmarch

'I rarely draw what I see; I draw what I feel in my body' Barbara Hepworth was born in 1910 in Wakefield, UK. She studied at Leeds College of Art and at the Royal Academy, London. She and Henry Moore were part of the modernist movement and were the first to create pierced, abstract sculptures. I relate to Barbara's quote because I do, actually, draw what I see and am very good at it. My training as a designer and my experience of teaching drawing at Leeds College of Art has r

David Hockney was born near my own home town in Yorkshire in 1937 and studied art for 10 years at Bradford School of Art and at The Royal College of Art in London. He and some of his fellow students began the 'Pop Art' movement and he has been a hero of mine for 30 years. In his statement 'The photograph isn't good enough; it isn't real enough' he is talking about the divide between painting and photography. At one time, he experimented with photographic collages to try to ge

On 15th May, Mei Che Seong came to visit March Gallery and sat for an hour while sketching the street scene. Mei Chee Seong is the principle architect at a practice in Malaysia and is an 'Urban Sketcher'. He had been taking part in the Iron Man Challenge in Da Nang at the weekend and cycled over to do some sketching around Hoi An before flying home. I think his bicycle cost more than 10 of my paintings!!! #MeiCheSeong #Artist #MarchGallery #BridgetMarch #blog

As a group of artists and entrepreneurs, we are pushing to turn Hoi An’s old French Quarter into the ancient city’s centre for authentic arts. Fine art photographer Rehahn is leading the push to restyle Phan Boi Chau Street as Rue des Arts. Joining him are the owners and artists involved in art galleries, a museum, and fine crafts shop, in the same neighbourhood. We want the Rue Des Arts to be recognized as a place to find original, high value creative work in Hoi An. There a