This exhibition brings together a lively eclectic selection of contemporary artworks which use animal imagery. The history of visual art is full of animals used as decoration, allegory, symbol – the way in which animals are understood and portrayed has always reflected the society of the time.
The works here use different media to reflect our varied and sometimes confused feelings about our co-creatures – including fear, awe at their visual beauty, sentimentality.
From Stephanie Quayle’s vigorous ceramic sculptures to Stephen Johnson’s constructed kitsch works; from Georgia Hayes expressionist paintings to Lucy Casson’s imaginative assemblages, this quirky and colourful exhibition reminds us that ultimately artists’ use of animal imagery expresses far more about human beings and the boundaries of our understanding than it does about the creatures portrayed.
25 June 2011 – 14 September 2011 in Gallery 1
