British sheep breeds 2007-9
image: Scottish Blackface 2009 watercolour on paper (private collection)
description
A series of watercolour paintings of some of the British breeds of sheep by Australian artist, Christine Porter, created as a result of her 2007 McGregor Fellowship trip to the UK. The paintings were exhibited in Toowoomba and Moree, (Australia) and Edinburgh (Scotland) in 2008.
go straight to the paintings including those that are still available
background
Christine had no intention of even looking at sheep when she organised her 2007 travel itinerary to England and Scotland for her McGregor Fellowship trip she had received from the University of Southern Queensland the year before. She concentrated on planning visits to artists and galleries and anticipated her seven day Hadrian's wall walk would be about boundaries. However, before she'd even started that walk, she was introduced to some of the wide variety of sheep breeds that grazed the country she was about to walk through. The walk would provide subject matter and thinking time for the development of her ideas about colonisation and emigration that would be exhibited on her return to Australia: the sheep would be part of that story too. (read about other work that resulted from that trip - the lost gloves, Hadrian's Wall)
A conversation with the director of the Randolf Galleries in Edinburgh earlier had resulted in, not only a solo exhibition of her etchings there two months later, but an introduction to a well known sheep breeder who lived nearby. On a sunny day, in the middle of lambing, Christine met first-hand the Blue-faced Leicesters and North-country Cheviots that would provide inspiration for this series of paintings. As her journey continued, once people discovered her interest, it seemed that everywhere there were flocks large and small that presented an intriguing visual inspiration.
In 2008 Christine was invited back to Scotland to exhibit the paintings she'd begun on this first trip. She was the official International Artist for the National Sheep Association at the Royal Highland Show in Edinburgh. There, amongst the cream of the country's flocks, she realised she'd barely touched on the subject such was the potential all around her. For a moment she seriously considered becoming a bi-national sheep artist but eventually Australia won out. It's not a dream completely packed away, she says from her sub-tropical home, wistfully thinking of her experiences there, though not of the biting winds of an Edinburgh summer.
Earlier in 2008, before she returned to Scotland with a suitcase full of sheep paintings, she showed those works as part of the exhibition entitled I couldn't see the landscape for the fields at the Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery. This exhibition was part of her fellowship prize and constructing a cohesive show from three disparate bodies of work (the lost glove acrylic paintings, the Hadrian's Wall etchings and these sheep watercolours) gave her a chance to explore a presentation mode that came from her university training. Read about how going to university changed the way Christine thought about her art, all the while making her more sure of her traditional aesthetic.
artist statement
The catalogue writing from that exhibition describes how the sheep portraits became part of the emigration story, at the same time being quite simply, (relatively) accurate paintings of some of the sheep she'd encountered. She writes:
The seven day Hadrian’s Wall walk follows what’s left of the wall, from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in the east to the Solway Firth in the west, for one hundred and sixty-five km, over land farmed for more than two thousand years. The pattern of fields of improved pasture, grazing the ovine and the docile, fenced and hedged and walled, seemed repeated all over England, Scotland and Ireland; not once in the three months of her trip was Christine out of sight of fence or house or town. Her walk became inevitabely a meditation on both Roman and British colonisation and led her to consider those patterns of repeated emigration within her own family that placed her, suddenly, where her ancestors had been re-placed from.
...This series of paintings, individual sheep that stand in for all the once native elements of this once wild place, describes how generations, nay, tens-of-thousands of generations of invaders, landholders and city-dwellers have subjugated the wild there, resulting in the land as a palimpsest; native stock as exotic and a people tucked safely away in their houses, warm and protected from “nature”.
Christine Porter Toowoomba 2008
installation, exhibitions and sales
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presentation Most of the work from this series has been exhibited framed behind glass as in the installation shot, below left. Only one that is remaining is framed the others are presented archivally matted and wrapped in cellophane ready for framing, as in the sample left. |
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where to see or purchase these paintings in Australia |
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copyright, reproductions and licensing
- The copyright of all content on this website - all pictures and words - is owned by the artist. It is illegal to copy or transmit any image from this site. Please contact us if you wish to see a larger file of any image.
- Christine and Full Moon Publications are happy to discuss appropriate licencing of Christine's images.
Full Moon Publications has created a series of three blank greeting cards (110 x 110mm, with white envelopes) using images from this series- the wee lamb, lady in waiting and ewe. At present there are no other plans for artwork to be reproduced from this series as cards or posters but if you are interested in any image, please contact us as it may be that a print is in the offing.
buy lamb cards
available artwork
These works are all for sale. Contact us for the most up-to-date information about a particular artwork or buy paintings from this seris. Please be aware of the sort of discrepancies that can occur between the photographed or web-reproduced artwork and how it is in real life.
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young tup |
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shearer 2008 watercolour on paper cm |
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a fine specimen 2009 watercolour on paper 15 x14cm slightly different crop than shown here |
selected archive
These paintings have all sold; they are now in corporate and private collections in the UK and Australia. This is only a selection of the paintings sold from this series.
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ewe private collection - sold |
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in the shed 2007 watercolour on paper 14x7 cm framed size: 34x24cm private collection- sold |
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are you my mother |
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blue-faced Leicester 2007 watercolour on paper private collection Australia - sold |
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ewe |
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lady in waiting |
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pippy longstocking 2007 watercolour on paper private collection Australia - sold |
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feeding time 2008 watercolour on paper size private collection UK - sold |
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jacob: rare breed 2007 watercolour on paper private collection UK - sold return to background |
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Beatrix Potter's Herbwicks 2007 watercolour on paper private collection Australia - sold |
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lamb 2007 watercolour on paper private collection UK - sold |
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on a windy day you can see forever 2008 watercolour on paper private collection Australia - sold |
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being the black sheep 2007 watercolour on paper private collection Australia - sold |
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one lamb 2008 watercolour on paper private collection Australia - sold |
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two lambs 2008 watercolour on paper size private collection Australia return to description |
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the wee lamb |
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paddock Leicester 2008 watercolour on paper private collection UK - sold |
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Scottish Blackface and twins 2008 watercolour on paper private collection UK - sold |
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Scottish Blackface 2008 watercolour on paper private collection Australia - sold exhibited 2008 Australian Watercolour Institute annual exhibition, Mosman Art Gallery , Sydney |
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penned sheep 2007 watercolour on paper private collection Australia - sold |
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shearer 2008 watercolour on paper private collection UK - sold |
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farmer 2008 watercolour on paper private collection UK - sold |
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Welsh Badger-faced sheep 2008 watercolour on paper private collection UK - sold return to background |
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the Wensleydales of Cheedle 2007 watercolour on paper private collection UK - sold |
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black and blue 2008 watercolour and body colour on paper private collection Australia - sold |
