Claire Harkess Indian Tigerlands
Claire Harkess Indian Tigerlands 6 – 30 March 2013
16 Dundas Street, Edinburgh EH3 6HZ • Tel 0131 558 1200 Email mail@scottish-gallery.co.uk • www.scottish-gallery.co.uk Front cover: From the Forest (detail), watercolour, 63 x 65 cms Left: Troop (detail), watercolour, 76 x 105 cms
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Tiger Trace (20) watercolour, 13 x 13 cms
Foreword
Claire Harkess resolves an ancient tension present in the depiction of the natural world between art and science. The precise recording of animals and plants by skilled artists has for five hundred years been a vital component of their taxonomy but necessarily limited by scientific demands to dry representation. With many honourable exceptions, for example Audubon’s Birds of America, an encyclopaedic approach devours inspiration. Today’s wildlife artists compete for prizes in a narrow rather specialist field and have to share their territory with the photographer. Harkess has recognised that intense study is still necessary, as is mastery of proportion and colouration but that to make art out of nature she must draw from the same well-spring of creativity as any original painter. Habitat is suggested by a subtle colour wash or a screen of leaves dissolved in light. She has, for this exhibition, been in India. Her tigers, monkeys and birds are very real, but glimpsed; far removed from cage or specimen table or even the staged habitat of the wildlife artist so that her paintings convey the experience of seeing and the thrill of discovery and observation. This is her second one-person exhibition with The Scottish Gallery and sees further confirmation of her status as one of Scotland’s most gifted painters. GUY PEPLOE January 2013
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Introduction
Returning from India – with its heaven and hell contrasts – it is hard to digest everything. I didn’t know where to begin. I left the material aside for a year or so. This gave me a distance from the trip – time for memories to filter, ideas to come and space to calm down. Unlike other study trips to remote uninhabited places, India is a crazy cocktail of colour and noise. Everything is all at once. There’s no space for air and any natural habitats are never far from the encroaching population. If I become too conscious or considered about what I’m doing – the paint seems to stick – I get stuck. Working on heavy watercolour paper and tissue thin Chinese papers the paintings can be split roughly into two sections, based on the paper and its characteristics. Watercolour leaves traces, stains, ghosts, shadows of what was put down before like a memory in paint. Claire Harkess January 2013
2 Tiger Trace (22) watercolour, 13 x 13 cms 3
Tiger Trace (19) watercolour, 13 x 13 cms 3
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Parakeets watercolour, 73 x 103 cms
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Stilt (iv) watercolour, 28 x 37 cms
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Stilt (ii) watercolour, 27 x 37 cms 7
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Bee-eater (ii) watercolour, 28 x 36 cms
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Roost watercolour, 73 x 103 cms 9
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Hoopoe and Weavers at the Breakfast Table watercolour, 65 x 81 cms
10 Kingfisher watercolour, 54 x 74 cms 11
11 Sarus Cranes, Bharatpur ink on rice paper, 66 x 130 cms 12
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12 Indian Roller watercolour, 56 x 76 cms 14
13 Forest Birds, Fading Tiger watercolour, 64 x 81 cms 15
14 Bee-eaters watercolour, 65 x 72 cms 16
15 Bee-eater (i) watercolour, 56 x 76 cms 17
16 Langur and the Moon watercolour & ink on rice paper, 17.5 x 27 cms 18
17 Forest Creatures watercolour, 66 x 100 cms 19
18 Family Group, Macaques at Bharatpur watercolour on rice paper, 25 x 31 cms 20
19 Troop watercolour, 76 x 105 cms 21
20 Rhesus Macaque watercolour on rice paper, 29 x 44 cms 22
21 Jump watercolour, 76 x 105 cms 23
22 Langur’s Favourite Tree, Kanha watercolour & ink on rice paper, 68 x 85 cms 24
23 Midday Shade watercolour on rice paper, 17 x 20 cms 25
24 Cool Morning, Kanha watercolour & ink on rice paper, 62 x 90 cms 26
25 Moving through Bandhavgarh watercolour & ink on rice paper, 67 x 105 cms 27
Kanha National Park 3rd March 2010 3pm We sit by open meadow. It’s hot and bright after the morning thunder storm. No wind, barely a sound. A stonechat sits on the end of a tall blade of grass. We wait. A sambar deer barks in the Sal forest about half a km away. I have learned not to get too excited – the now familiar distress call usually turns out to be a false alarm. It is a surprise to arrive and hear a tiger. All other noises fall silent as attention is fixed on the direction of sound. It is the resident female looking for her three cubs – nearly two years old and taken to exploring on their own. Her repeated call is soft, clear and urgent, interrupted every minute or so with an angry, impatient roar that seems to travel right through you, silencing the forest beyond. The calls are loud, maybe 20 meters away. I see nothing. The tigress is so perfectly blended with her surroundings. Suddenly she’s out – behind us on the road. She sits, panting, calling. Her coat is intense orange/burnt sienna fading to off-white under belly. Broad black stripes and banded tail, perfect camouflage in the bush are now eye-catching against the dirt road. Her forepaws extend towards us exaggerating their power and size. She stands, turns and vanishes. Her winking white ear spots the last we see of her. Moments later, three flat eared, flat tailed, skulking teenage cubs, almost the size of their mother, cross a firebreak following her call.
26 Kanha Tiger ink on rice paper, 61 x 96 cms 28
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27 Kanha Waterhole watercolour, 78 x 80 cms 30
28 Village Meets Forest watercolour, 70 x 90 cms 31
29 Hidden Tiger watercolour, 73 x 103 cms 32
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tiger traces
This is a series of very small paintings – each tiger can fit into your hand. The idea is of something precious, rare, elusive, notoriously hard to find. To catch a glimpse of one is truly magical. They are small treasures – jewels of the forest that are sadly not priceless. Some images almost majestic are reduced to a shadow or ghost, a silhouette or a mere trace of something that once was.
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30 Tiger Trace (26) watercolour, 13 x 13 cms
31 Tiger Trace (27) watercolour, 13 x 13 cms 35
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32 Tiger Trace (1) watercolour, 13 x 13 cms
34 Tiger Trace (15) watercolour, 13 x 13 cms
36 Tiger Trace (32) watercolour, 13 x 13 cms
33 Tiger Trace (40) watercolour, 11.5 x 11.5 cms
35 Tiger Trace (13) watercolour, 13 x 13 cms
37 Tiger Trace (39) watercolour, 11.5 x 11.5 cms
38 Tiger Trace (18) watercolour, 13 x 13 cms
40 Tiger Trace (2) watercolour, 13 x 13 cms
42 Tiger Trace (6) watercolour, 13 x 13 cms
39 Tiger Trace (21) watercolour, 13 x 13 cms
41 Tiger Trace (4) watercolour, 13 x 13 cms
43 Tiger Trace (14) watercolour, 13 x 13 cms 37
44 Hidden Leopard watercolour, 78 x 80 cms 38
45 Silent Passing watercolour, 50 x 70 cms 39
46 Tiger Trace (9) watercolour, 13 x 13 cms 40
47 Tiger Trace (11) watercolour, 13 x 13 cms
48 From the Forest watercolour, 63 x 65 cms 41
49 Spotted Deer watercolour & ink on rice paper, 16 x 17 cms 42
50 Tiger and Sunbird watercolour, 34 x 52 cms 43
51 Wild Dogs (iii) watercolour on rice paper, 26.5 x 35 cms 44
52 Wild Dogs (iv) watercolour on rice paper, 27 x 36 cms
53 Asiatic Lioness, Gir watercolour on rice paper, 25 x 30 cms
54 Hog Deer, Kaziranga watercolour on rice paper, 20 x 26 cms 45
55 Holy Cow watercolour on rice paper, 14 x 16 cms 46
56 Hanuman Langur watercolour on rice paper, 29 x 44 cms 47
57 Rhino watercolour on rice paper, 29 x 44 cms 48
58 Rhino (ii) ink, 56 x 77 cms 49
CLAIRE HARKESS
1970 Born Ayr, Scotland 1988-93 BA (hons) Fine Art, Glasgow School of Art 2005 Elected member RSW (Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour) Selected Solo Exhibitions 2013 ‘Indian Tigerlands’ The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh 2010 Queen’s Gallery, Dundee 2009 ‘Worn Tracks, New Marks, Kenya’ The Strathearn Gallery, Crieff 2008 ‘Galapagos’ The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh 2007 ‘St Kilda’ Plockton Gallery @ The Manse 99, 01, 05 ‘Antarctica’ Strathearn Gallery, Crieff 97, 04 Maclaurin Art Gallery, Ayr 2003 Green Gallery, Aberfoyle 2000 ‘Outback and Beyond’ Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh 1998 Edinburgh Zoo 98, 00, 05 Tolquhon Gallery, Aberdeenshire 1997 University of York 1997 Crosskeys, Perth Selected Group Exhibitions 2011 The Scottish Gallery at Kinblethmont Gallery, Arbroath 2011 Whitehouse Gallery, Kirkcudbright 2011 Perthshire Open Studios
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2009 Kilmorack Gallery, Beauly 2007 Wade Gallery, Elie 2005 Castle Gallery, Bute 2004 Thomas Henry, Fine Art, Nantucket, USA 2004 Galerie Dauphin, Singapore 2003 Green Gallery, Munich 2002 Society of Wildlife Artists, Mall Galleries, London 2000 VAS, Royal Scottish Academy 1996–98 SAAC, Royal Scottish Academy 1998 Queen’s Gallery, Dundee 1998 Fotheringham Gallery, Bridge of Allan 1997 RSW, Royal Scottish Academy 1996 New Faces, Perth Museum and Art Gallery 1996 Frames Gallery, Perth 1995 Aberdeen Hospital 1993 Degree Show, Glasgow School of Art 1992 ‘Contain’, Sydney, Australia 1991 The Old Museum, Belfast Public Collections Perth Museum and Art Gallery, Perth and Kinross Council Royal Scottish Geographical Society Invited Artist 2004 Dunkeld Cathedral Annual Exhibition 2004 Perthshire Art Association, Perth Museum and Art Gallery
Awards/Competitions 2011 David Shepherd Wildlife Artist of the Year overall runner up and Category Winner of Wildlife in Action 2010 Riverside Gallery Award, RSW 2006 SAC, Perth and Kinross Artists’ Award 2002 Windsor and Newton, RSW 2002 Exhibitor at Singer and Friedlander/ Sunday Times Competition 1996 Arches Winter Painting Competition (wildlife) Residencies 1998 The Royal Zoological Society, Edinburgh Teaching 1999– Dollar Summer School 1998 Summer School, Edinburgh College of Art
Study Visits 2010 India 2009 Kenya 2008 The Galapagos Islands 2007 St Kitts, Nevis 2006, 07 St Kilda 2006 Australian Outback 2005 Grenada, Tobago 2004 Antarctica + South Georgia 2003 Caribbean Islands: Dominica, Barbados, Trinidad, Cuba 2003 Mexico: migration of the Monarch Butterfly 2002 Letterewe Estate, Wester Ross: Commissioned paintings for book ‘A Highland Deer Herd and Its Habitat’ pbl Red Lion Press, London 2000 Australia: three months travelling the Eastern and Central regions
Television 2002 Landward, BBC: Art and Nature 1998 The Zoo, BBC: Documenting the artist in residence programme
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Published by The Scottish Gallery to coincide with the exhibition Claire Harkess: Indian Tigerlands 6 – 30 March 2013 Exhibition can be viewed online at www.scottish-gallery.co.uk/claireharkess ISBN: 978-1-905146-74-1 Designed by Kenneth Gray Photography by William Van Esland Printed by Barr Printers All rights reserved. No part of this catalogue may be reproduced in any form by print, photocopy or by any other means, without the permission of the copyright holders and of the publishers.
16 Dundas Street, Edinburgh EH3 6HZ Tel 0131 558 1200 Email mail@scottish-gallery.co.uk Web www.scottish-gallery.co.uk
Right: Langur’s Favourite Tree, Kanha (detail) watercolour & ink on rice paper, 68 x 85 cms Back cover: Tiger Trace (31) watercolour, 13 x 13 cms 52
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