In April 2026, Megan Hanlon, volunteer at Olivier Cornet Gallery, wrote about Tied To Love by Nickie Hayden, oil on board, 27 cm x 27 cm, available to purchase for 650 euro.

A woman in a pink dress stands on the edge of the Brooklyn Bridge. Below, the river flows indifferently while the city erupts into chaos. A lone observer in a passing taxi watches helplessly, overwhelmed by both fear and fascination as sirens wail frantically, lights flash, and police feverishly attempt to reason with the woman, seemingly about to jump. Such is the scene depicted by American poet Peter Money in his poem, To The Lady Standing On Top The Bridge. 

First exhibited at the Olivier Cornet Gallery as part of her 2020 solo show, Sanctuary, Nickie Hayden’s Tied To Love forms part of a wider response to Money’s poem. Here, the bridge glows in subtle shades of indigo and lavender, with city lights emerging in elusive streaks of pale pink and transparent white. Gone are Money’s “opera of red”, madness and emergency; Hayden offers a subtle respite from the anxiety of this image through her own reinterpretation of the poem.

Hayden’s Tied To Love can be read as somewhat of a postscript, though it remains just as open to interpretation as the poem that precedes it. Just as the poem does not reveal the fate of the woman on the bridge, Tied To Love equally does not elaborate on the events of the tumultuous night. Despite the despairing urgency of Money’s depiction, Hayden’s work instead suggests the quiet emergence of a new dawn. The composition is intimate and protective, offering a poignant counternarrative to the poem’s sense of panic. It affirms that even in times of uncertainty and helplessness, life carries on.

Painted at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, amidst global lockdowns which prompted unprecedented isolation and heightened vulnerability, Hayden’s Tied To Love is reflective of the emotional climate of its time. The familiar image of a cityscape without a discernable human presence is evocative and melancholy, yet the subtle streaks of pink throughout evoke a resilient spirit which prevails even in times of intense anxiety. In the artist’s personal interpretation of the open-ended poem, the woman has stepped back from the edge, the pink of her dress becoming a symbol of comfort and resilience in defiance of a tumultuous world. 

Nickie Hayden’s solo exhibition, Sanctuary, ran at the Olivier Cornet gallery from the 8th of November to the 13th of December 2020. Featuring over 20 paintings, an installation and a haiku wheel, the exhibition responds to poetry by Peter Money - primarily To The Lady in Pink Standing On Top The Bridge.

Megan Hanlon, 8 April 2026