Our featured Artist Member for June 2025 is Guy Holder.
Guy lives and works in Brighton but he also has an occasional home on the Norfolk coast. From these coastal bases he can observe a wide variety of birdlife and behaviour in their habitat. He also looks at birds from around the world, and studies them through drawing. Guys particular interest at this point is their expressions, the attitudes that they strike and the seemingly infinite variations between different types of birds.
I would have to say, as basic as it is, that modelling clay is my first inspiration. Looking for things (usually animals) to model is, by its nature, inspiring too. Observing things and subjecting what I see to the process of modelling is my inspiration.
When I was young, it was a revelation to me when I discovered that you could make a something out of clay and it would be part of the world in a way that paintings or drawings were not. Paintings on a wall are, in away, isolated (and elevated) from the rest of the room. A sculpture on the other hand, has to find its own place on a shelf next to a candlestick and half drunk cup of tea. The challenge of context is an attraction for me.
For many years I worked in Brighton and our group studio occupied a succession of buildings awaiting development. I worked in stables, a drill hall, an old school, a sweet factory, a bakery, an office block and a disused photo processing lab.
I now live in Norfolk where there are many, many birds. I work in my own studio but because I’m so used to moving every year or two my studio is kind of makeshift. I like the feeling of impending change when I work.
It’s hard to choose a single favourite piece. I like the precision and jewel like quality of my small wall birds and how they articulate balance on the twig.
My crow captures something of their demeanour and the darkness that they evoke beyond their colour.
I suppose owls as a subject is my favourite. They seem separate from other birds but also from us, living obscure lives that rely on solitude and silence. I can’t help but project ideas, stories and myths on them.
Raymond Harris Ching, the illustrator of the AA book of British birds has been an important influence on me. He combined looseness with precision. He worked within a western tradition of nature illustration without affecting a prominent personal style or borrowing from other times or cultures. His is a skill within a tradition, but that also has an energy that suggests a living thing. Above all his work, like mine, tries to suggest animal before art.
In contrast to the above, I find the early work Damien Hirst made with animals inspiring. By combining spectacle with pathos he questioned our humanity in relation to animals/nature in a way that I found moving, challenging and direct.
One of my favourite pieces of art is by Nigel Coates where he recreated the dawn chorus by slowing down the song of different birds so it was within the range of a human voice. He then videoed people imitating the slowed down versions which he then sped up and they sounded and sort of looked like birds.
Check out this video from this search, marcus coates dawn chorus
A collection of Guy’s work is available to purchase in the gallery and via our online store.
