Horse (Mirrored) (Cow Girls: Sheep Boys)
Artist
Barry Flanagan
(1941 - 2009)
Date1995
MediumBronze
Dimensions146.7 × 106.7 × 40.6 cm
154.9 × 106.7 × 40.6 cm
154.9 × 106.7 × 40.6 cm
ClassificationsSculpture
Credit LineCollection & image © Hugh Lane Gallery.
Donated by Barry Flanagan (the Artist), 1996.
© The Estate of Barry Flanagan.
Object number1891
DescriptionBest known for his triumphant bronze hares that spring into life, Flanagan's work has attracted attention since his first show in 1966 at the Rowan Gallery, London, while still a student at Central Saint Martins. His first bronze Leaping Hare was cast in 1979, a move from his earlier use of everyday materials such as sand, hessian, felt and light. The change of materials marked a culmination in his questioning of material and sculptural form. Influenced by the written work of Alfred Jarry, notably 'pataphysics' or the science of imaginary solutions, Flanagan fuses the everyday and the fantastical, moulding and gripping the clay to create a form that offers itself to our imagination. Flanagan use of animals, such as the hares, elephants and horses, as in this work, invests human attributes into the animal world, referencing the conventions of the cartoon. The sketchy quality of his technique transforms the work to appear always in motion and thus subject to change. The horse, archetype of classical sculpture, symbolic of fertility, and in particular man's constant companion, here mirrors itself, male and female.
Flanagan represented Great Britain at the Venice Biennale in 1982 and lived and worked in Dublin and London. He died in Ibiza on 31 August 2009.
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