We are pleased to present ‘Fauna Rampant’, an online spotlight show of new work from the British artist Sam Branton. The exhibition presents a collection of new paintings describing a Romantic antique world that has been overrun with wild animals in surreal and mischievous adventures.
All works are small paintings of animals in neo-Classical landscapes. In part they are inspired by eighteenth century painters such as George Stubbs and Jean Baptiste Oudry, both renowned for their depictions of wildlife in pastoral settings. But Sam also expands on the theme of antiquity by presenting his paintings like fragments of a now-lost grander canvas. Similar to the ruins they depict, his paintings give mere hints to an expansive greater whole, acting as tiny glimpses into fantastical ferine worlds.
Landscape and animals have long served as a channel for imaginative projection in art. The neo-Classical landscape in particular, as epitomised in Capability Brown’s creations, sought to present a poetic idealisation of antiquity as if it were real. Both Stubbs and Oudry exploited this; imagery of dead game and prize stallions steadily progressed into dramatic antique motifs, such as horses tussling with lions. Fantastic beasts in classicised settings soon followed: Oudry painted ‘Clara the Rhinoceros’ in 1749, and in 1772 Stubbs painted ‘The Kongouro from New Holland’, the first image of an Australian animal in Europe. The landscape and the natural world were a place where the magnificent and fantastical became true. They were not just exotic: they were bizarre.
Sam Branton takes this material and runs with it with wild abandon. His fragments gives us flashes of an exuberant and eccentric Garden of Eden. A toucan fraternising with an otter; a monkey feeding a pod of seals; a swan wrestling with a squid from a feast-laden table. There are moments when the veneer is pierced and a mischievous dog tears floral papering from the wall, and others where the animals themselves become attached to artistic caprice and a bear cossets a miniature portrait like a romantic keepsake. Their intimate scale and the uncomplicated sincerity of animal behaviour lend the paintings a charming quality, while the gentle pastel palette of the settings create a warm pastoral glow. Together, they act like documents of long-lost fantastical world, as well as an exploration of how imagery of nature can serve as an imaginative stage across history.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Cookie | Type | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|---|
_wpfuuid | 1 | This cookie is used by the WPForms WordPress plugin. The cookie is used to allows the paid version of the plugin to connect entries by the same user and is used for some additional features like the Form Abandonment addon. | |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary | 0 | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-non-necessary | 0 | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Non Necessary". |
viewed_cookie_policy | 0 | 11 months | The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data. |
Analytics cookies help us understand how our visitors interact with the website. It helps us understand the number of visitors, where the visitors are coming from, and the pages they navigate. The cookies collect this data and are reported anonymously.
Cookie | Type | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|---|
YSC | 1 | session | This cookies is set by Youtube and is used to track the views of embedded videos. |
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
Cookie | Type | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|---|
test_cookie | 0 | 11 months | This cookie is set by doubleclick.net. The purpose of the cookie is to determine if the users' browser supports cookies. |
Cookie | Type | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|---|
CONSENT | 0 | 16 years 10 months 14 days 16 hours 18 minutes | No description |
Advertisement cookies help us provide our visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns.
Cookie | Type | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|---|
IDE | 1 | 1 year 24 days | Used by Google DoubleClick and stores information about how the user uses the website and any other advertisement before visiting the website. This is used to present users with ads that are relevant to them according to the user profile. |
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE | 1 | 5 months 27 days | This cookie is set by Youtube. Used to track the information of the embedded YouTube videos on a website. |