The Goodwood estate on the picturesque South Downs has welcomed award-winning contemporary visual artist Jeremy Houghton as its first-ever Artist in Residence, allowing him to draw inspiration from the international events, venues and beautiful South Downs setting.
Houghton’s work is an ongoing study of speed, horse power and flight; and with Goodwood’s cultural heritage and sporting history, his residency here gives him the perfect setting to capture the spirit of sport and spectacle. As well as the Goodwood community; the house as a home, life on the farm, at the kennels, in the forests, in the gardens and on the Downs — this is where generations of families have kept Goodwood the very place it continues to be today.
Horse Power
Houghton was offered the residency at Goodwood following his success as the Royal Artist in Residence at both Highgrove and Windsor Castle, as well as his sporting work at the 2012 London Olympics. These experiences, along with his equestrian and classic car commissions, provided helpful provenance in producing the “Horse Power” collection of Goodwood, which will be exhibited during 2015 and 2016.
Houghton says that he loves residing on great sporting estates. “The estates have both a public perception and a private side, and during a residency I can sit on the fence and observe both. At Goodwood, there are the noisy times when the big events are taking place, but I am also interested in the downtime when the park is quieter,” he says.
Not that Houghton minds being in the thick of it when Goodwood’s annual events are in full swing. At the Goodwood Revival, he was photographed beside his beloved vintage 1935 Bentley, which he revealed was originally his great grandfather’s. It won the RAC Scottish rally in 1937, when it was driven by his grandmother, and during the war it went on to be used by his great uncle, as part of the homeland fire brigade in Coventry, where it survived the bombing. Family members have raced the car since then and it counts a healthy 660,000 miles on the clock. Now BOP600 is in Houghton’s safe hands and the family uses it to potter, picnic and paint — but at a more moderate speed!
Cars have, however, featured in Houghton’s repertoire before, when he became Tour Artist of the 2013 Aston Martin Centenary Tour of Europe. Taking in some truly fabulous settings including Monaco, Como, Garda and Reims, the tour enabled Houghton to paint iconic Aston models in his signature style, which culminated in a month-long exhibition at the Heritage Motor Centre. “The courage of the drivers, combined with the skill of the engineers, gives this art exhibition a story like no other I have been involved with,” he said at the time.
Liminal Encounters
Currently, Houghton is fresh from his Liminal Encounters exhibition in London. The week-long event showcased paintings from throughout his career and was held in Gallery 8 in St James’s. His position of being in-between the public and the private sides of an estate were central to the naming of his exhibition.
He says: “Liminal is a poetic word that describes the state of being in-between. This viewpoint, combined with my technique of always focusing on the spaces between and around my subjects, makes liminality very pertinent to the way I work. My paintings are all about the edges, and that’s where I like to be.”
The people and objects that characterise Houghton’s works are illuminated by the way that he shapes the spaces between them, and the spaces in which bodies linger, shimmer, move and (quite often) take flight.
Also on display at the exhibition was one of Houghton’s sketch books in which he has many of his current Goodwood works, including moments from the Racecourse, Festival of Speed, Revival and at the House. These sketches and early paintings form a fascinating insight into the workflow of the artist.
Transient nature
What is immediately obvious about all of Houghton’s paintings is that the images take on different forms depending on where you stand to look at them, with the subjects often floating in and out of abstraction. From a few feet back, the paintings display a clarity and there are definite outlines to the forms within the painting. Up close, the brush strokes appear almost random and more abstract, asking questions of how the overall picture is formed.
“I stand back and squint when I’m painting,” said Houghton of his methodology. “If you look from a distance, the shapes and outlines are clear and I have to sometimes paint at arm’s length. Up close, it can just look like a mess!”
Houghton uses two distinct yet complementary bodies of work to paint the atmosphere and essence of specific places, favouring themes of time, motion, transience and change. One of Houghton’s latest projects is called Glass Ground, which serves as a link between conceptual and installation art, where an exploration of time and space is depicted via a completely different medium — a “redundant old greenhouse” to use Houghton’s own terminology, explaining that it is “very magical and meditative.”
In experiencing all his works as a journey, the viewer’s senses are richly stimulated: sensual colour or contrasting tonal relationships lead to the discovery of visual pathways; imagery leads to the anticipation of memories; forms and movement are implied by the play of light and shade; objects seem to coalesce or evaporate before the eyes. Everything Houghton depicts in his work imbues reality and emotion, and every one of his pieces is somehow much more convincing than any scene captured on camera. This artisanal authenticity, surely, is what the spirit of Goodwood is all about.
