Vanda follows art dream after life-changing trauma

City Lives – Denise McNamara meets successful self-taught artist and gallery owner Vanda Luddy

Wandering around the beautiful light-filled art gallery of Vanda Luddy with its colourful prints adorning every inch of space, you get a feeling of joy.

The four-storey building on Upper Abbeygate Street has been completely transformed in just a month. During the renovations, Vanda uncovered a stunning ancient beam running through the shop floor and has also created a lovely fireplace from behind the plasterboard to ensure a welcoming atmosphere in the depths of winter.

She moved just across the cobblestones from her previous gallery to her new home, opening this month in what she insists will be her permanent work abode.

But behind the bright pastels of her paintings and prints lies a sadness. And also a steely determination. Vanda is a woman who has had a personal, family and work battle on her hands for the last few years. Yet here she is.

Business is booming and she is now firmly ensconced in what must be one of the most stunning work places in the city.

Vanda’s journey began on Raleigh Row, as the daughter of hotel chef Tommy Hincks and Gertie Hincks. She began her studies in the Presentation and later  attended the Mercy before studying secretarial skills at what is now the GMIT. It was there she met the love of her life Aidan Luddy, who was studying in the school of hotel and catering.

She and Aidan subsequently moved to London where she worked as a personal assistant before she decided to head alone for the sunshine of Los Angeles and Florida. But their relationship was rekindled – they got engaged and returned home to Galway, seven years after they had emigrated.

Aidan went from working as deputy manager of the Grosvenor House Hotel in London’s Park Lane to managing Raftery’s Rest pub and restaurant in Kilcolgan. Vanda returned to her old job, working with accountant Frank Coen. After the birth of her first son, she set up her own business as a naíonra in order to be at home. At the time there only a few naíonras in the area and they were very packed.

“I wanted something a bit more intimate. Something where the kids could get into the garden, have teddy bears picnics, to go pet farms. I still meet the kids from that time and the parents still keep in touch to tell me what they’re doing,” Vanda remarks.

Her morning play group was held in her home in Renmore for ten years, where there were up to 14 kids at one stage.  And it was while encouraging her little charges to get creative that she first started to dabble in painting. Astonishingly she had never really put paint to brush before that.

“I liked colours, interiors and fashion, but it was only really 18 years ago that I started painting. I never got the chance at school, we weren’t encouraged to do art. It was either domestic science or science, you hadn’t the time to paint, it was get out there and get a job,” she recalls.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.