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10
Aug
New Harrogate exhibition presents flowers in a fresh light
Flowers are integral to Harrogate’s story, but a new exhibition in the town encourages us to think about them in fresh ways.
Thank You, Sorry, and Congratulations explores Knaresborough-born artist Thomas James Butler’s evolution into the secret language of flowers, also known as floriography.
As the name of the exhibition suggests, flowers can be used to express a range of words and emotions, as well as to display an endless range of colour.
Visitors to the exhibition, which opened at RedHouse gallery on Cheltenham Mount on Friday night, are greeted by a large and spectacular acrylic painting called The Field, which dominates the entrance.
"A friend invited me down to Hampshire to paint a field,” he tells the Stray Ferret. “I had no idea what I was going to do. I just knew it was going to be big and bold. I had no planning, no sketching, I just started painting. Everything in the exhibition stems from it.”
The exhibition highlights Butler's use of different materials.
Flowers, says Butler, then started appearing frequently in his paintings.
The exhibition also includes a film made by Butler and photographer Robin Clewley inspired by the poet Philip Larkin’s 1972 poem Going, Going about the loss of English countryside.
He says:
The poem itself is quite bleak, but we’ve pulled the light and positive from it, trying to make the point that if we know what’s happening then if we wish we can change it. It’s not just a protest piece it’s a love letter to nature.
Tom Butler and Candie Payne
Butler, who dropped out of art school and stopped making art until he rediscovered his love for it, shares a Harrogate studio with artist partner Candie Payne, who we featured last year.
Thank You, Sorry, and Congratulations is his second solo exhibition at RedHouse.
Artworks range in price from £45 to £5,000.
The exhibition, which runs until September 19, also features some classic black and white photographs by Terry O’Neill featuring the likes of the Beatles, David Bowie and Elizabeth Taylor.
A Terry O'Neill photograph of the Beatles in the exhibition.
More information on the exhibition is available here.
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