'HOLD YOUR HORSES'
Coming October 1st
Eight original paintings, born from my memories of growing up in the English countryside.
In April, I returned to my childhood home for a long summer—a place that has seen me through so many seasons of life: from child to young adult, and in the days before I ever called myself an artist. Alas, a little film was born from a desire to share the sights and spirit of this land with you. To open a door into a past life, when I was not yet an artist, but simply a girl who loved nature and spent every spare moment with horses.
Allow me to hold that door ajar, so you can see for yourselves how this place continues to find its way into my work today, even from my other home, Australia.
I always had such a deep love for animals. When i was 7, I became friendly with Lady Sally Guise, who was part of the family living in Elmore Court when it was still a historical heritage family home.
Sally had deerhounds and at that point, 8 new puppies. From this day on and for the years that followed, I was there every weekend helping her with her 10 hounds.
After being caught in the rain one day, Sally put me in her long Barbour jacket and matching waterproof hat. My red wellies were worn to the point I needed plastic bags over my feet before wearing them. It felt fitting to revisit these quintessentially British and nostalgic clothes for our video.
SHOOT DAY 1
Shoot day arrives and the team come ready, Flick & Freddy. Along with them comes the rain. How fitting!
APPLES
As a child we borrowed a cider press from my grandfather, collected as many apples as we could from the orchards and spent the whole day pressing juice and cider.
Autumnal rituals. knitware, red cheeks, fingerless gloves with music playing on an old stereo.
The South West of England is known for its cider, and is filled with ancient and abundant orchards. Each fruit carries its own organic form, taste, juice, texture and colour and we would collect up the fallen fruit for mums crumbles, always saving the core for the horses in my pockets.
For me, there is something singular about the spirit of a horse; the juxtaposition of grandeur and gentleness, immense power and profound calm. Their trust must be earned, through time, patience and love — and from that, a rather extraordinary bond can grow.
There is something deeply healing in it, too. Few feelings compare to an open field, the wind whispering past you, or that flash of fear and exhilaration as you gallop at full speed. Horses demand your full presence. They pull you, quite effortlessly, out of your own head and into the moment.
THE BARN
It was really important that the space in which we collectively shot these works, also was humming with the same character as the story this collection is about. I have always found the concept of an artist pouring their heart and soul into their pieces, only for them to be hung in a white sterile gallery, purposefully bland and sad almost.
I believe that the exhibition space is part of the story to feed into the expression of the work, I want the space to elevate the experience and feeling of the viewer to hold. An old hay barn, one with its own story, soul and history, warm red bricks that were made in the local village, each one different to its neighbour. A barn that lives on a farm going back 5 generations in one family.
HORSES
This is Cooper, otherwise known as “Super Cooper”. A gentle giant who has spent a very relaxing summer doing what he does best: eating. A man after my own heart.
Kindly loaned to us by my childhood friend Tom for the making of our film, Cooper is a grey horse — a little echo of my very first horse, a tiny miniature Shetland pony called Smokey. A true menace. He lived until the grand old age of 43 (!), and taught me many lessons along the way. Namely, that if Smokey didn’t want to do something, then he simply aint doing it.... A smart fella.
In the fullness of time, I’ve come to understand that storytelling is at the very heart of what I do. I take my own thoughts, memories and feelings and transmute them into a visual story I have never quite seen before — a new reciepe of feeling, viewed through these heart-shaped goggles. Does that make me one of those self obsessed artists? Maybe.
But my experiences of this weird and wonderful world are all there is. Creating is my blood flow, my way of processing this life. It's all I've got.
Alas, none of this would be possible without the energising force of other creatives. Life as an artist can be a strangely solitary one. Spending long days alone, marinating in one’s own thoughts and feelings, conjuring worlds that exist nowhere else but in the mind. There is something I find deeply moving in taking something that may seem entirely unnecessary on paper, and breathing life into it, collaborating to create something that once only existed as a thought. A seed.
Thank you my team. To Felicity for the conceptualisation of this video, cinematography and helping me grow new creative branches. To Freddy who helped photograph everything and capture the essence of feeling in the vision.
Perhaps, then, this is for us the creatives, as it is for you, the reader, the viewer, the other.
