The Chase (part 3) Painting

This is part of a 3 painting series which reinterprets Richard Ansdell’s 19th century oil painting 'The Chase' using internet found imagery and cultural and commercial iconography to create an altered view of contemporary Britishness and urban living. Painted at the time of heated discussion around the countryside, and student riots on the streets of our cities, it features the 'red coats' of rural fox hunters with their packs of hounds, and a large head of a English Bull Terrier poking out central to the composition (both charged with notions of aggression, yet typical to different aspects of British culture). The paint drips and bleeds at the base of the oval canvas, softened with painterly depictions of pink and white roses, and a fleur-de-lis stencilled background. This powerful, striking and loaded painting was shown at the former Cornerhouse gallery, in Manchester, UK (Now HOME) in its entirety in 2014.