The story behind "Chickens"

I'm doing a series of blogs with a little bit of background information about some of the Harris Tweed "paintings" currently in an exhibition. of my work at the Bakehouse Gallery in Alnwick.

I have to confess that although I live in the countryside, I don't keep chickens and I know very little about them. "Chickens" was one of the first pictures I did for the exhibition and it was inspired by a trip to York Art Gallery back in 2017.

One of the rooms in the gallery was completely transformed to reflect one artist’s vision of a Lumber Room – a room of miscellaneous stored objects and artefacts, inspired by a short story by Saki. York-based artist Mark Hearld spent 2 years  researching the objects and artworks to include in the exhibition, which were taken from the store rooms of the Yorkshire Museum, York Castle Museum and York Art Gallery.

​The slightly gloomily lit room was full of an amazing mix of textiles, ceramics, costumes, oil paintings, works on paper, furniture, and taxidermy, along with a selection of Mark's own work made specially for the exhibition. It was so good we went to see it twice and we were gutted when we returned a third time later in the year to find it had gone. We had mistakenly thought it was a permanent feature of the gallery!

Anyway .....chickens and birds feature quite a lot in Marks' work and I was inspired by him to create a picture of chickens. The picture itself is an imagined composition based on various photos and the white coloured chickens are Suffolk Lights. 

"Chickens" has been professionally framed in a plain wooden frame with an opaque white finish. It measures 15 inches square (inc. frame) and costs £400. It is also available as a greetings card or a giclee print in 2 sizes (£25 & £75) from the Bakehouse Gallery or our online shop.