Jason Gathorne-Hardy

From Field and Sea

Study of Goose's Head

Seagull Landing

Jason Gathorne-Hardy grew up in Suffolk. He trained as a zoologist at Oxford University. In the early 1990s he took up wood carving and painting. He taught himself to draw and paint in Suffolk, Spain and Austria using graphite and earth pigments from the landscape. In 1995 he joined Maggi Hambling's life drawing classes at Morley College in London, studying for one day a week until 1998.

In 2005 he founded The Alde Valley Food Adventures, a rolling programme of events that celebrate food, farming, lansdscape and the arts. Alongside Spring and Autumn exhibitions and Open Farm events, he shows work in Suffolk at the Snape Maltings Gallery and with Cobbold & Judd.

He has previously exhibited at The Aldeburgh Cinema Gallery, Sir Peter Pear's Gallery, The Strand Gallery, Reed's Wharf Gallery, The Pumphouse Gallery, The Mall Galleries, Northcote Gallery, The Redfern Gallery and the Concert Hall Gallery at Snape Maltings. His drawings and paintings feature in the Hiscox Collection, Jesus College Collection, the Adnams Collection, Milsoms' Hotel Kesgrave and, most recently, in the refurbished White Lion Hotel in Aldeburgh. His drawings are also represented in private collections in Great Britain and abroad. His farm in Great Glemham was Highly Commended in the 2008 Future of Farming Awards for exemplary management of wildlife, landscape and access for its open farm food and arts events.

Seagull Rising

Study of Suffolk Ram Looking Down

Artist's Statement

The drawings on show at Hintlesham Hall were mostly completed during the spring and summer of 2008. They present recent work from two ongoing bodies or themes of work : livestock in the Alde Valley and seagulls along the Suffolk coast at Slaughden, just South of Aldeburgh.

I have been drawing livestock for almost fourteen years, initially as short studies in Wales and more recently as larger bodies of work that focus on the flocks and herds that populate the fields, farms and marshes of the Alde Valley in East Suffolk. My interest in these animals focuses on their physical form and how they move - their bearing and their presence. I am also fascinated by the contribution that livestock farming in general makes to our daily lives. In visiting farms, I have often noticed how the presence of well cared for, healthy livestock tends to bring a place to life. Alongside the owners and their families, the animals lie at the heart of a farm.

The drawings of rams are from my own Alde Valley Lamb flock and neighbouring flocks in the Upper Alde Valley. At home, I usually take a small tub of food for the rams to browse on whilst I sit amongst them to sketch and draw. Most often, they run across the field to barge around and eat the food on the ground. One or two sometimes stay behind to double check the well-trodden ground for leftovers, but mostly they soon wander off to different parts of the field to digest their food or to resume grazing.

Cows are more curious and will generally gather round regardless of whether you bring anything to eat. The Red Poll herd at Blackheath will stay close by for fifteen to thirty minutes. Their sense of smell seems to be at least as sensitive as that of beagles or bloodhounds, but adapted to the scent of herbs and grasses instead of game. They usually approach warily with wet noses and eyes rolling, drawing in long draughts of air to test the smell of their visitor. After half and hour or so the majority again resume grazing, but a handful of younger calves and one or two mothers often stay behind. Many of the drawings bear the marks of their friendly interest, in the form of lick marks, dribble and the occasional hoof print.

The seagull drawings represent a return to another theme that has interested me over the past few years : sea birds and particularly black-headed gulls. I first started drawing seagulls in London in the early 1990s, watching them fly over Battersea Park, the Thames and Pen Ponds at Richmond Park. At the time I thought they were like handkerchiefs, borne aloft and blown around by the wind. Whilst other birds struggled to get airborne, the small black headed gulls seemed to have the opposite problem. The slightest breeze seemed able to pull them up into the air. Their challenge seemed to be to stay quiet and still, rooted to the ground. One breath of wind and an outstretched wing, and they were whipped up and away.

The drawings of seagulls in this exhibition were all made in the summer and autumn of 2008. They include small studies drawn from life at Slaughden in Aldeburgh and larger works completed in my studio at White House Farm. In both the small studies and the larger drawings I have tried to catch a sense of the lightness and speed that the seagulls display when airborne, and the quietness, or busy-ness with preening, that they demonstrate when resting on the foreshore or sheltering from a storm.

The portrait of the goose is based upon life drawings made whilst watching geese in the rain at home in Great Glemham.