The Society of Wildlife Artists Exhibition

The 48th Exhibition of the Society of Wildlife Artists 'The Natural Eye' opens to the public on 27th October and runs until 6th November 10-5pm daily at the Mall Galleries, the Mall, London, SW1 including three paintings by Jonathan Sainsbury: Bitterns and watervoles square, Hares and corncrakes square and Refraction - Carolina Duck.

'Bitterns and watervoles' and 'Hares and corncrakes' both come into Sainsbury's Square series, under a category he calls 'Contingency' to indicate the juxtaposition of two subjects within the same picture and hinting also at the unknown future that these species face. The 'Refraction' series explores the appearances of birds and fishes above and below water. www.swla.co.uk

Society of Animal Artists

The 51st Annual Society of Animal Artists' 'Art and the Animal' exhibition and national tour opened to the public on 17th September at Dennos Museum Center, Traverse City, Michigan including Jonathan Sainsbury's 'Turkey square' www.societyofanimalartists.com

One Half of the Exhibition will be displayed though December 30, 2011 - The Other Half will close on October 30, 2011 to go on National Tour

DUAL TOUR ITINERARY
One half of the 51st Annual Exhibition will tour to:
November 19, 2011 - February 19, 2012: The Wildlife Experience, Parker, CO
March 15 to April 15, 2012: Dunnegan Gallery Of Art, Bolivar, MO
May 26 - September 3, 2012: Milwaukee Public Museum, Milwaukee, WI

One half of the 51st Annual Exhibition will tour to:
January 21 - March 25, 2012: Peninsula Fine Arts Center, Newport News, VA
April 12 - June 12, 2012: Appleton Museum of Art, Ocala, FL (Pending Confirmation)

Of Sainsbury's work the judging panel commented 'The handling of the medium is superb, but more importantly, there is 'movement and behaviour' and most striking is the composition. The angle is somewhat down on the turkeys, and the artist allows parts of the bird to go off the page - the tail at the top, and the wing at the bottom - which makes for a strong, dynamic, yet simple composition'

click picture for further details

Turkey square
Watercolour & charcoal , 34" x 34" £4,500

Creation

in St Serf’s church, Comrie, Perthshire

‘An exhibition in my own village is an opportunity to show how the local environment inspires my pictures.  Beyond that, I wanted to show the process of making them, from first sketches to finished works.
Hanging paintings in a working church is different from using a conventional space.  There is a gravitas that increases as you get towards the altar which reflects back on the creatures themselves.
This exhibition is part of an ongoing story about my feelings towards God and Nature.  In the last year I have visited several cathedrals in England and Scotland and seen works of art and architecture expressing faith which can be deeply moving.  I am just embarking on my own contribution to this story through combining Nature and man-made objects or stories.’ 
JONATHAN SAINSBURY

The exhibition attracted large numbers of visitors from across Scotland and abroad.  Each of the seven classes from the local primary school came along, as well as groups from Ardvreck and Glenalmond College, to hear Jonathan explain his work.  In encouraging the young people to attend, Jonathan was responding to Robert Bateman's talk at the San Diego Natural History Museum, as part of the celebrations of the Society of Animal Artists' 50th Exhibition opening.  Robert had urged us to encourage children and young people to get out into the countryside and to learn about nature. The drawings on the children's thank you letters and their return visits with their parents after school revealed that many of them were already interested in both art and nature.

Society of Animal Artists, USA 

Jonathan Sainsbury was elected in 2009 a Signature member of the Society of Animal Artists, USA.

His oil, 'Hares and skylarks' has been selected to hang in the 50th anniversary exhibition of the Society of Animal Artists which opens at the San Diego Natural History Museum on 4th September 2010 and runs until October, before moving to Denver, Colorado from November until February 2011.

Premiere
San Diego Natural History Museum
September 4 - October 31, 2010
1788 El Prado, San Diego, California
sdnhm.org

Encore
The Wildlife Experience
November 20, 2010 - February 21, 2011
10035 South Peoria, Parker, Colorado
thewildlifeexperience.org

CLA Game Fair

Ragley Hall, Alceser, Warwickshire 23rd - 25th July 2010

Jonathan Sainsbury is exhibiting on the Redspot Artists' stand, P1279, where a range of originals in oils, watercolours and watercolours & charcoal, featuring

his Square series, are on display, starting at £300

To reserve any picture viewed on the website ring 07515 709 179

Aberdeen Artists' Society 76th Annual exhibition

Saturday 1st May - 29th May 2010

'Spring pheasants' and 'Bantam pekin square' have been selected by the judging panel for display.

Animal Art Fair at Fulham Palace

16th - 18th April 2010

A selection of the Square series by Jonathan Sainsbury was displayed alongside fellow Redspot artists.

Royal Scottish Watercolour Society 2010

'Hares and skylark square' was chosen for this year's RSW held at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh

Society of Animal Artists

Jonathan Sainsbury has been elected a Signatory member of the prestigious North American Society of Animal Artists, which will be celebrating its 50th Anniversary in 2010.
www.societyofanimalartists.com

RGI

Barnevelders square’ hung in the 2009 148th Annual Exhibition of the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts

‘Turkey square’ was exhibited at the Royal Scottish Society of Watercolours, 2009 and is currently on display in the Strathearn Gallery Christmas exhibition, Crieff, PH7 4DL, 01764 656100 info@strathearn-gallery.com

Society of Wildlife Artists, London

'Woodcock square’ and ‘Pheasant square’ hung in the SWLA exhibition 2009, in the Mall Galleries, London

Birds in Art, 2009

'Apples' was chosen for Birds in Art 2009 at the Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, Wisconsin, USA’  Retain second paragraph, changing the name of the museum to ‘Woodson Art Museum’. 

Poetry

Poets have a freedom to associate images across time and space. For example, John Clare, in his poem 'The Skylark', refers to shoots of green corn, yet only a few stanzas later, introduces an image of boys gathering armfuls of buttercups. In real life, there would be a passage of many weeks between those two visions.

The picture surface of 'Apples' (see above) and 'Cock pheasant', both based on poems by Laurie Lee, is broken up so as to show the passage from one image to another. The surface is divided into four columns and four rows. In 'Cock pheasant' the bottom row shows the marrow and the 'creviced pumpkin' of the poem. The next row shows the apples and the one above, the hazelnuts. So, the eye is drawn up through the images, just as the reader progresses through the verses of the poem.

COCK-PHEASANT

Gilded with leaf-thick paint; a steady
Eye fixed like a ruby rock;
Across the cidrous banks of autumn
Swaggers the stamping pheasant-cock.

The thrusting nut and bursting apple
Accompany his jointed walk,
The creviced pumpkin and the marrow
Bend to his path on melting stalk.

Sure as an Inca priest or devil,
Feathers stroking down the corn,
He blinks the lively dust of daylight,
Blind to the hunter’s powder-horn.

For me, alike, this flushed October -
Ripe, and round-fleshed, and bellyfull -
Fevers me fast but cannot fright, though
Each dropped leaf shows the winter’s skull.

Laurie Lee