FERGUS HARE

This third solo exhibition of paintings by Fergus Hare at North House Gallery comprises three dozen paintings in acrylic on canvas, linen or paper.

A series of three new paintings of the moon indicates that his passion for the cosmos persists since his first show of moon and space drawings and paintings, entitled Cosmic Matters, in 2017. However, the majority of the new work continues in the vein of the more earthly but strangely mysterious, imaginary paintings of his second show in 2021. There are more crowd, snow and beach scenes, numbered but otherwise untitled. Other works do have titles but they still don’t exactly explain what is going on. The artist’s persistent refusal to dictate a narrative allows the viewer to provide their own. The figures in the work, drawn from numerous sources, are generally not specific and there is a deliberate lack of detail in the faces. He explains:

“The identity of the people and places in my paintings now, mostly, are not important and I want them to have a certain ambiguity... I’m trying to capture character and personality through the shapes of their posture and the way their clothes sit. I’ve started to treat these paintings as abstractions.

“I like to think about things in relation to the cosmos. The definition of the cosmos, as Carl Sagan put it, is everything there ever was, is, or ever will be. I like that everything can be united in that way. I think that when my work is viewed as a whole, then I can see that there might appear to be lots of things going on, but to me it’s all one thing.” Fergus Hare 2024

Born in 1977, Fergus Hare studied Foundation at Camberwell College of Art and graduated from Norwich School of Art in 1999. He worked as an art handler and picture hanger in London, then as an artist’s assistant and techincian when he moved to Brighton in 2010. For many years Fergus had been painting mainly landscape based work, mostly outdoors in oil paint. Around this time he started making charcoal drawings of the moon from a telescope, somewhat inspired by Gilileo’s drawings and his long running passion for the moon and space. They were exhibited in London, Munich and Essex (North House Gallery), were featured in Astronomy Magazine and discussed in Moon: Art, Science and Culture by Alexandra Loske and Robert Massey. Fergus’ work was shown alongside one of Constable’s paintings in the Brighton Museum and would be frequently mentioned in lectures on Contemporary British Romanticism and the moon in art. From 2015-2023 Fergus was represented by New Art Projects in London and exhibited with them nationally and internationally.