Nic Fiddian-Green
Nic Fiddian-Green has been represented by the Sladmore Gallery for the last 10 years. His work, from small maquette to massive monumental, is highly prized around the world in public and private collections.
He has shown in New York, Paris, Sydney, Melbourne, Dublin and London. The forthcoming exhibition at the Sladmore ‘Bold New Work’ opens on 16 June and runs until 3 July 2009 following a simultaneous opening of three monumental landscape pieces at Glyndebourne Opera House on the 16 May to celebrate their 75th anniversary and two large pieces at ‘Sculpture at Woburn’ on the same day.
Through sheer determination and passion for his subject Nic Fiddian-Green has stayed true to the form of the horse’s head for 25 years. The spirit and power of this noble animal, both servant and master to man, has been the artist’s long-term obsession. No animal is so deeply embedded in our culture and history; the earliest example of art ever discovered in Britain was a horse’s head carved into a bone from 10,000 years BC.
Fiddian-Green's recent harrowing encounter with life-threatening illness has caused an obvious and honest creative reassessment. There emerges a stronger, deeper and more contemplative vision that permeates the new work. His sculpture is sometimes seen as a form of self-portraiture, even through the form of the horse's head. He shows us how his spirit and his faith help him triumph over the physical. In the eyes of his silent horse’s heads we feel pain, strength, fear and wisdom, as he asks complicated questions of the viewer that give the new work a powerful spiritual and emotional resonance. These inner reflections, as profound as the pieces’ outer beauty and majesty, are striking.
In this body of work he continues to show he is an artist of our time, formed and inspired by his recent experience. The influence of the elegant Parthenon Frieze is still apparent as the classical Greek principles of grace, beauty, serenity, and harmony are balanced with new sensibilities to create his unique, very modern sculpture.