"Horses, horses, horses..." - Summerfield Gallery

horses, horses, horses, horses
coming in in all directions
white shining silver studs with their nose in flames,
He saw horses, horses, horses, horses, horses, horses, horses, horses 

Do you know how to pony like bony maroney...
(Patti Smith: "Land", from Horses, 1975)

Fine Form: The Horse in Art, Installation shot, Summerfield Gallery: foreground, Andrew Logan, Life, Birth and Death,2006-8; back, left, Elisabeth Frink, Horse and Rider (Robed), 1985; back, right, Mark Wallinger, Half-Brother (Exit to Nowhere - Machiavellian), 1994-5

Fine Form: The Horse in Art is an exhibition marking the centenary of the Cheltenham Festival (15th - 18th March): it will be in the Summerfield Gallery, Pittville Studios and the Centaur at Cheltenham Racecourse until 30th April. The exhibition draws on the collections of the Tate, the Arts Council and Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum.

The glittery-winged forms of Andrew Logan's Pegasuses, Life, Birth and Death, dominate the installation in Summerfield Gallery (see above) but are in fine company, notably works by Mark Wallinger, Tania Kovats, Elisabeth Frink, William Tucker and Christopher Le Brun, amongst others.

Wallinger's Half-Brother (Exit to Nowhere - Machiavellian), 1994-5, is a life-size portrait of a horse comprised of separate forequarter and hindquarter, in explicit acknowledgement of the place of pedigree in the thoroughbred.

Mark Wallinger, Half-Brother (Exit to Nowhere - Machiavellian), 1994-5 (Tate Collection)

From the sublime to the ridiculous, Wallinger also shows A Real Work of Art, 1994, a tiny, diecast model of horse and rider, the jockey painted in the suffragette colours of green, violet and white in a reference to Emily Davison who threw herself under the King's horse at Epsom Derby in 1913.

Mark Wallinger, A Real Work of Art, 1994 (Arts Council Collection)
The work also refers to one of Wallinger's more ambitious and conceptual works wherein he bought (through a syndicate) a real racehorse which he named A Real Work of Art.

Tania Kovats became fascinated by the Uffington White Horse while undertaking a residency in Oxford in 2006: her collection, Museum of the White Horse is the result and comprises both a collection of objects (books, stamps, models, etc) and a sequence of pencil drawing of objects from the collection. (See also, appendix, below.)

Tania Kovats, Museum of the White Horse: from top, Small Finds (detail), White Horses by Jacky, 45 rpm single, 2007, Books from the Museum of the White Horse Library, Non-Fiction, 2007 (all, Arts Council Collection).

Finally, one of the most striking images in the show is a photograph by Tim Flach: Windows - Chestnut, 2008.

Appendix
As it is not possible to read all the titles in the reproduction of Tania Kovats' drawing, Books from the Museum of the White Horse Library, Non-Fiction, 2007 (see above), and because I am an ex-librarian (see also, below) and a bibliographile(?), I have taken the liberty of compiling a bibliography for the drawing:
Tania Kovats: from the Museum of the White Horse Library, Non-Fiction, 2007, a bibliography. 
NB, while the authors and titles are accurate, the places and dates of publication may not necessarily match the actual editions drawn. Books are listed in the order that they appear in the drawing, left to right.

Miles, David et al (2004) Uffington White Horse and Its Landscape: Investigations at White Horse Hill Uffington, 1989-95 and Tower Hill Ashbury, 1993-4, (Thames Valley Landscape Monographs), Oxford: Oxford University School of Archaeology

Williams, Dorian (1975) Great Riding Schools of the World, London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Cahill, Marie (1991) The Owner’s Comprehensive Guide to Training & Showing Your Horse, London: Bison Publishing

Tippett, Frank (1975) The First Horsemen (the Emergence of Man), New York: Time-Life Books

Lock, Gary et al (2005) Segsbury Camp: Excavations in 1996 and 1997 at an Iron Age Hillfort on the Oxfordshire Ridgeway (Oxford University School of Archaeology Monograph), Oxford: Oxford University School of Archaeology

Gianoli, Luigi (1969) Horses and Horsemanship through the Ages, New York: Crown

Ingrams, Richard (1988) The Ridgeway: Europe’s Oldest Road, London: Phaidon

Coatsworth, Elisabeth (1973) The White Horse of Morocco, London: Blackie

Lady Wentworth (1958) The World’s Best Horse, London: Allen & Unwin

Dames, Michael (1978) The Silbury Treasure: The Great Goddess Rediscovered, London: Thames & Hudson

Jankovich, Miklos and Dent, Anthony (1971) They Rode into Europe, London: Harrap

Communicationes Archaeologicae Hungariae, (1982), Budapest

Appleton, J. H. (1975) The Experience of Landscape, London: Wiley-Blackwell

Vansittart, Peter (1985) Paths from a White Horse: A Writer’s Memoir, London: Quartet

Summerhays, R. S. (1975) Summerhays' Encyclopaedia for Horsemen, London: Frederick Warne

Laming, Annette (1959) Lascaux, London: Penguin

Hanbury-Tenison, Robin (1985) White Horses over France: From the Carmargue to Cornwall, London: Grafton

Burridge, Richard (2004) The Grey Horse: The True Story of Desert Orchid, London: Aurum Press

Summerhays, R. S. (1963) The Observer’s Book of Horses and Ponies, London: F. Warne

[unidentified]

Hawkes, Jacquetta (1951) A Land, Cresset Press

Billington, Sandra and Green, Miranda eds. (1996) The Concept of the Goddess, London: Routledge

Coles, Alex ed. (2001) Archaeology: Mark Dion, London: Black Dog Publishing

Buchli, Victor and Lucas, Gavin (2001) Archaeologies of the Contemporary Past, London: Routledge

Arthus-Bertrand, Yann and Gourand, Jean-Louis (2007) Horses, London: Thames & Hudson

Deeping, George Warwick (1934) The Man on the White Horse, London: Cassell

The Open West - Summerfield Gallery, Pittville Studios

The 2011 Open West exhibition will be in the Summerfield Gallery, Pittville Studios, University of Gloucestershire from 9th February to 5th March. 45 artists have been selected by Richard Billingham, Matthew Raw, Lyn Cluer Coleman and Sarah Goodwin.

11 of the selected artists will give talks about their work at Pittville Studios, on Saturday 12th February: Fergus Jordan, David Kiely, Matthews & Struthers, Richard Ansett, Alicja Rogalska, and Bobby Nixon in the morning, from 10.00am; Ellen Nolan, Howard Silverman, Jon Mayers, Helen Murgatroyd and Laura Clarke in the afternoon, from 1.30pm.

 Open West, installation views.

Jeremy Duncan - Summerfield Gallery, Pittville Studios

Concurrent with the Lisa Milroy exhibition, "In the Black" (see below), Jeremy Duncan is showing paintings in the Summerfield Gallery: "A Certain Slant of Light: paintings of London, Paris & New York, 2005-8". Duncan describes his studies of the play of light on architectural details - including disused warehouses, buildings being demolished, new flats being built - as almost a form of abstracted realism. (See Artist's Statement, Waterhouse & Dodd Contemporary.)

Jeremy Duncan, Mott Street, 2008

Jeremy Duncan, Centre Georges Pompidou, 2008
The exhibition will be open until 17th December, 2010 - The Summerfield Gallery is at Pittville Studios, University of Gloucestershire, Albert Road, Cheltenham, GL52 3JG. Jeremy Duncan is represented by Waterhouse & Dodd Contemporary.

Lisa Milroy: "In the Black" - Summerfield Gallery, Pittville

In the Black, an exhibition of paintings by Lisa Milroy will be in the Summerfield Gallery at Pittville Studios in Cheltenham (University of Gloucestershire) 24^th November – 17^th December 2010.

Following her graduation from Goldsmiths in 1982, Lisa Milroy achieved early success with her paintings of still life objects (shoes, light bulbs, melons,…) the motifs painted in sensual bravura strokes on plain, neutral backgrounds.

Lisa Milroy, Shoes, 1985 (Collection: Tate Gallery)

Lisa Milroy, Light Bulbs, 1988 (Collection: Tate Gallery)

Later work includes architectural subjects (the Travel Paintings), portraits and Japanese interiors and figures (Geishas).

Top: Lisa Milroy, Room, 1997 (Collection: Tate Gallery); bottom: Lisa Milroy, Girl, 1998 (Collection: Tate Gallery)

For this exhibition, In the Black, Lisa Milroy has selected fifteen paintings from 1984 to 2009 to present the use of black in her work. In a text written for the show, Milroy describes the role played by shadows in her still life paintings:

The darkest area in my painting is the point at which the object and ground meet in shadow. ‘Darkest’ does not always mean black, although this dark can feel like black. The black of a painted shoe has a different material quality than the black in a painted shadow. Both allude to different realities, the shoe tangible, factual, ordinary, the shadow suggested, felt, mysterious.

She describes, in detail, making, and applying, black:

I make my own black paint by mixing ultramarine blue and burnt umber. I only use black straight out of the tin for painting a ground or as a glaze, or for drawing on the canvas when I need a line both fluid and pigment-rich. Emotionally, it feels quite different to use readymade black as opposed to black I make myself. My own black feels more intimate, a part of me, like my own shadow. Readymade black is more a tool, functional. Independent from me, readymade black paint is less emotionally charged.

A shadow in my painting binds an object to the ground. My shadows are made from ultramarine blue, burnt umber and titanium white which produces a soft gray. For a hot or warm shadow, I add a touch of yellow ochre or alizarin crimson to the mix and for a cooler shadow, I add more ultramarine blue. To paint a shadow, I start by brushing my own black paint to the right of the object. Then I paint the gray component next to it. To finish, I blend the black at the edge of the object into the gray area and the gray area into the off-white ground that surrounds the object.

Lisa Milroy is the Head of Graduate Painting, Slade School of Fine Art, UCL; she is represented by Alan Christea Gallery. Read an interview in RA Magazine, Autumn 2009, Issue 104.

Installation view

The following items are available in Pittville Learning Centre:

Bradley, Fiona (2001) Lisa Milroy, London: Tate Gallery
Chisenhale Gallery (1995) Lisa Milroy: Travel Paintings, London: Chisenhale Gallery
Lisa Milroy (2003) [video], London: Illuminations (theEYE series)
Waddington Galleries (1998) Lisa Milroy, London: Waddington Galleries
Watkins, Jonathan et al (2007), Lisa Milroy: Making Sense, Birmingham: Ikon Gallery

Jerwood Drawing Prize - Pittville Studios

The Jerwood Drawing Prize 2010 exhibition will be at the Summerfield Gallery, Pittville Studios, University of Gloucestershire, 11th - 22nd November. (See review in an.)


First prize has been awarded to Virginia Verran for her drawing Bolus Space (signal), 2009/10, pens on canvas (above).

Second prize has gone to Cadi Froehlich for Untitled (tea table), 2010, side table, hot drink rings (below).

Student prizes were awarded to Warren Andrews:

Warren Andrews, David M. Hutchinson Drawing No.436, 2010, mixed media.

and James Eden & Olly Rooks:

James Eden & Olly Brooks, Burst, 2010, film (of graphite balloon bursts) 5mins, 15 secs.

The Jerwood Drawing Prize was established in 1996 as the annual Cheltenham Open Drawing Exhibition - it was renamed the Jerwood Drawing Prize when the Jerwood Charitable Foundation became the principal supporter in 2001.
Just under 3,000 entries were submitted this year for consideration by the selectors: Charles Darwent, Art Critic, Independent on Sunday; Jenni Lomax, Director of the Camden Arts Centre; and Emma Talbot, artist (former Course Leader, Fine Art, University of Gloucestershire).

Installation view.