Marcus Coates
British Birds of Prey: Eagle Owl, 2022
pigment on Hahnemuhle 100% α-cellulose, laid finished rice paper
80 x 60 x 14 cm (framed)
Edition of 3
British Birds of Prey, 2022, is a series by Marcus Coates commissioned for Jesus College, Oxford. Coates was appointed as a short-term visiting Fellow at Jesus College in 2022. The...
British Birds of Prey, 2022, is a series by Marcus Coates commissioned for Jesus College, Oxford. Coates was appointed as a short-term visiting Fellow at Jesus College in 2022. The one-year fellowship aims to enhance the artistic life of the college community.
The idea for the series evolved from Coates’ 2013 series, Ritual for Reconciliation. Crumpled photographic portraits of animals are the result of a destructive and generative process by the artist. Coates makes high quality archival prints of his wildlife photography and compresses them in his hands as tightly as possible. A deliberately destructive act which is a reaction to the superficiality of image and its inadequacy to fully represent the animal. However, for Coates it’s also an attempt to retrieve the lost experience of his initial encounter with that animal by imbuing it with physical form.
This series is featured in the Rosaline Wong Gallery which opened in October 2022. In the context of Jesus College, Coates proposes the birds of prey as powerful creatures, alternative subjects to traditional portraiture found throughout the university.
The idea for the series evolved from Coates’ 2013 series, Ritual for Reconciliation. Crumpled photographic portraits of animals are the result of a destructive and generative process by the artist. Coates makes high quality archival prints of his wildlife photography and compresses them in his hands as tightly as possible. A deliberately destructive act which is a reaction to the superficiality of image and its inadequacy to fully represent the animal. However, for Coates it’s also an attempt to retrieve the lost experience of his initial encounter with that animal by imbuing it with physical form.
This series is featured in the Rosaline Wong Gallery which opened in October 2022. In the context of Jesus College, Coates proposes the birds of prey as powerful creatures, alternative subjects to traditional portraiture found throughout the university.