Exhibition

Fergus Hare: New Paintings

9 Oct 2021 – 6 Nov 2021

Regular hours

Monday
Closed
Tuesday
Closed
Wednesday
Closed
Thursday
Closed
Friday
Closed
Saturday
10:00 – 17:00
Sunday
Closed

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North House Gallery

Manningtree, United Kingdom

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  • Manningtree Railway Station is one hour from London Liverpool Street
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In the last two years the artist's focus has changed from the sky and clouds down to earth and his medium has changed from charcoal, oil or watercolour to acrylic.

About

A series of crepuscular mountain paintings forms the transition between the classically informed (although demonstrably his own) style of painting of the earlier work to something more clearly contemporary, but again clearly his own. In the last two years, people, buildings and interiors have appeared. The light is still key but in the snow scenes the light is not in the sky but somehow emanating from the snow. In the mysterious crowd scenes, the light comes from behind the painter/viewer but does not exactly illuminate what is going on.  As Jenny Uglow writes in the introduction to a new book on Hare’s work to be published in 2022:
    
“The paintings often seem to hold a story. They are representational but not ‘realist’, often shading into the surreal or nudging towards abstraction. Each of Hare’s crowd scenes has a distinct, immediately graspable atmosphere yet the place and time are unexplained. And while the language of bodies suggests action and character, the mingled shapes and clothes fall into patterned juxtapositions of colour. To Hare, this visual effect
is what matters: if we want a narrative we must make it ourselves.”

The paintings are often untitled or with unexpressive series numbers to avoid specificity. Faces are not often distinct: they are blank or turned away. Uglow quotes Hare as saying, “ ‘I want them to be anonymous, not portraits but shapes, becoming almost abstract, figures in a landscape.’ ”

Fergus Hare was born in 1977 and after Foundation at Camberwell, graduated from Norwich School of Art in 1999. He trained in illustration but used this opportunity to create projects that were relevant to the type of work he wanted to be making, namely figurative and landscape painting and drawing. Since moving to Sussex from London in 2010 he spent much more time working outside, but by 2017 was beginning to discover the benefits of working in the studio in order to create more finished and accomplished work. Found images are often the trigger for the works in this show but Hare transforms them in the course of the painting.

Since graduation he has exhibited regularly in London, Sussex and Kent, and since 2016 has been represented by New Art Projects, London to whom North House Gallery is grateful for the opportunity to present this exhibition. The forthcoming book about Fergus Hare’s work published by New Art Projects can be viewed:

https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/65400976/04-nap-fergus-hare-yumpu

What to expect? Toggle

CuratorsToggle

Penelope Hughes-Stanton

Exhibiting artistsToggle

Fergus Hare

Taking part

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