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This series is set to go on show in London, March 2011. It sees my return to London after first exhibiting a show of nudes in 2009 called ‘End of Noise’. The transition from nudes to horses may at first seem odd but in a figurative sense they are very closely related.

I was inspired to paint horses after a discussion I had with Jonathan White, curator and owner of COMODAA Galleries, London. But it was not until a few months later when I read about an early silent film entitled “’King’ and ‘Queen,’ the Great High Diving Horses” (1899) that I knew what I wanted the series to be about.

The silent film was based on a circus act that saw horses trained to dive with a rider from heights as great as 60 feet into the Atlantic ocean. The act was later made famous in the 1920’s by Doc Carver and his daughter-in-law, Sonora Webster Carver, who in 1931, was blinded while diving, hitting the water with her eyes open, but amazingly she continued to ride blind for a further 10 years.

The relationship between human beings and horses has been one of great importance and of great manipulation. It has seen lands conquered, cities built and centuries of entertainment, ranging from dancing horses to racing horses. But none seem more peculiar than this act of high diving horses. However, this series is not an attempt to make judgement. That I will leave to the individual. This series is a look at the grand animals that are horses, and that even in the unnatural act of falling though the air they remain majestic and proud.