Inspired by an interview with Terence Coventry exactly 10 years ago, this exhibition explores sculptures and works on paper whose vital images convey both great power and tenderness. Coventry’s work is charged with energy and life, capturing the essence of an animal or human figure – whether on the move or in quiet contemplation.
After studying at Stourbridge School of Art and then at the Royal College of Art, Terence Coventry was posted to North Devon on National Service. It was following his discharge from the army that he decided to put his artistic pursuits to one side, setting up home, and farm, on the Cornish coast. For the following thirty years Terence Coventry’s natural talent as an artist lay dormant while he worked the land and watched the animals that surrounded him.
Year after year the shapes and forms of his environment embedded themselves deep in his psyche. Living and working in an isolated environment, he could fully absorb the textures, sounds, rhythms, movements and vibrance of the natural world with no distractions. He developed an acute awareness of animal behaviour, and continuously stored images of them in their natural habitat – from gulls gliding down on the thermals, to the bulls in the surrounding fields bursting with energy and power.
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