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Artist's Statement

When I was about nine I asked Mum "when are we moving to the country?". There was no reason why this was likely except that a couple of her friends had done so – moving onto lifestyle blocks and doing up cold stone Yorkshire farmhouses. My sister and I, pony-mad, saw much promise.

We moved to NZ instead. We girls continued to hang around riding schools, helping out in return for free rides. Eventually Mum & Dad bought us a pony that we kept on the site of the old Bexley dump, grassed over to settle. We went to Pony Club, then to A&P shows here & there around Canterbury , dreaming of the red first-place ribbon but still thrilled with the pale blue fifth.

Show day starts early, up at 6am to catch the pony and get him into the float, rugged, booted & bandaged for travel. What pathetic plaits we were able to get into Rikki’s short, bristly mane would never last overnight so we had to do that once we got to the showgrounds, and his tail too. Any amount of brushing, glossing and polishing couldn’t turn our fluffy, chunky pal into a sleek show class winner so what ribbons we took home were for jumping or, a minor miracle, a good performance in the ‘paced and mannered’ ring. Looks don’t count there.

I still love the A&P shows, and though I’m yet a townie, I still dream of moving to the country. And I don’t think I’m the only one. At the A&P shows there are a mix of country folk, townies and wannabe-bumpkins like me. It’s all the cute bits of country life without the every day 5.30 start. All the fancy chooks and glossy cattle and pretty ponies without the daily chores and boring bits.

Everyone in those rings is proud of their work and their animal (or vegetable). They’re sharing their enjoyment of goats, mini horses, giant pumpkins, rare-breed cattle or whatever it may be. They’re looking for some recognition too. From others who know about those things. The judges, the contestants, the public; everyone’s measuring up, assessing, looking with a critical eye. I like the brown one, no the spotty one. Number 54 has pasterns too sloping. That fat little chestnut went round the whole way with his ears pinned back, how can he get a ribbon for manners?

I love the juxtaposition of these various hobbies and passions. Gumboots next to polished spurs next to dancing pumps. I love the arcana – this costume for that event, this particular way of plaiting the mane, that particular kind of bridle. The horses all togged up in their rugs, boots, neck covers, so no speck of dust gets on their glossy hides, the little girl with a stiff brush trying to bring order to the coat of her fuzzy orange highland calf.  And all the sideshows too, and balloons, ice-creams, gadgets for peeling things, bottled preserves, organic handmade soaps and alpaca wool knitted ponchos for sale in the middle of summer. Next door is the stall where you can get your palm read and the next stall is selling the latest hay balers or drainage pumps. Something for everyone, some little part of the country life for even the towniest of us.

These works started with a love of A&P shows.

It’s about those shows, the people, their hobbies and passions, but it’s also about the act of looking, of appraising, judging, and of showing oneself and one’s work to those looks.

The aesthetic has stayed close to that of the photograph. From a very crowded scene, individual people and animals have been picked out. Standing out from the rest is what the show’s all about but often its details of preparation and spectatorship that I’ve focused on.

There’s a contrast between the ‘photographic truth’ and the creative ways the camera can bend the truth. Cropping, emphasising, digitally selecting, moving, scaling, re-contextualising. All these operations are done in the ‘drawing’ process – which is done on my computer – before the painting starts.

One the one hand there’s the very careful rendering of people and animals; they are painted quite true to the photo, no-one is given a different head, or even a different animal, though Photoshop makes such meddling easy.

One the other hand, they are isolated or put in odd pairings, painted on quirky objects and inserted into Stubbs’ 18^th century romantic landscapes or just left in a green limbo. 

The resulting paintings ask the viewer to complete the story – and leave the ending open.