Beasts, by Guy Holder

About

Beasts
An exhibition of sculpture by Guy Holder, of Elaborate Kingdom
The Lido Stores, Margate
Thursday 7 July – Sunday 17 July 2022
Drinks Saturday 16 July 6.00-8.00pm

The Lido Stores are pleased to present Beasts, an exhibition of sculpture by Brighton based artist, Guy Holder, of Elaborate Kingdom. 

“Animals lead parallel lives to us” John Berger

Guy is interested in seeing how animals are put together, how their anatomy works, their obscure parts, a whale’s blowhole or a crab’s mouth. And then, thinking more broadly, he imagines new bodies with new biological functions. This exhibition at the Lido Stores is largely drawn from a body of work posted on Instagram @elaborate.kingdom, which combines diverse writing with sculptures of animals in a gently poetic correspondence. It will be the first opportunity to see these sculptures off screen and in real life. The intimate setting of the Lido Stores, suits close up viewing of the finely modelled animals. Its seafront location with it’s very direct relationship with nature whilst also being part of a popular seaside town are in symmetry with the work’s combination of fun and seriousness- the insulated human and the abiding wilderness.  

Guy Holder has always been fascinated by animals, saying
‘I noticed the animals around me, my dog’s nose at home when I was a baby and could barely focus and later the wild animals outside. Sometimes I felt the urge to kill them as prey. Sometimes I saw them as a threat and was wary. Feeling these instincts I knew I was one of them.’

Animal behaviour, particularly to do with display (ie the calling of attention, the declaration of status) is a fundamental motivation in art. When making a sculpture a bird displaying, the artist doesn’t  consider himself outside that act- he is also displaying but at a level, so buried, so base, that it hardly seems worth mentioning except that it is fundamental.
Fashioning  animals in clay, with his hands since early life, simultaneously imprints himself upon the surface of the clay whilst making an depiction of an animal. In this way anthropomorphism is inherent in the work.
 
 
Influenced by Medieval Bestiaries (accounts by monks of that period of animal behaviour and projecting onto them religious stories) and Pliny the Elder’s “Naturalis Historia” (the first dedicated attempt at natural history from Roman times 0077ce), Guy is interested in our relationship to the creatures around us resulting in his own contemporary, diversified version.

About Guy Holder

Guy Holder earned a BA hons from Brighton University and since 1995 Holder exhibited regularly, most notably; Standard Bottle solo Fabrica, Brighton, Model Life Brighton Museum and Art Gallery, Art Futures, the Barbican, London and the RA Summer Exhibition. In 2013 he was shortlisted for the Jerwood Makers Open. He lives and works in Brighton. 
 
A founding member of Red Herring Brighton, Holder, as part of the collective initiated numerous exhibitions. He has had work published by the Crafts Council (Ideas in the Making), contributed to conferences (UEA, Fabrica, Brighton Uni) and various steering groups (%4art, Hove Museum, Empowering The Artist mentoring). His work is held in the collections of the Arts Council, the National Trust and the Historic Royal Palaces.
 
 
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