Threshold by Richard Hoare was on display at the Gallery at Linlithgow Burgh Halls from Friday 2 June to Sunday 15 October 2023.
Savage and sublime, these coastlines have been returned to again and again by Hoare who has captured their many personalities. As he has embedded himself more and more in this remote terrain, he has increasingly connected with the ancient cultures – resonating with their impulse to place megaliths and cairns and the siting of these structures. But he does not attempt to document these sites in a literal way; more denote the powerful presence of place they harbour.
“The cairns and megalithic tombs of the west coast of Scotland are clearly orientated with the same ancient understanding as those on Achill in Ireland, towards the setting sun and also the rising moon and certain constellations – like some giant observatory or clock,’ he says. ‘I now understand that these stones are markers that configure together to form a ‘mechanism’ in the landscape. Together with the earth they stand on, they form a sacred landscape that is a wider place of gathering to witness various celestial events.” Richard Hoare
Following a successful exhibition at Messums West, Hoare has returned to the coastal path to continue his journey, a kind of universal pilgrimage. Many of the works in this exhibition featured the landscape of the remote and westernmost fringe of Europe – the hills of Achill in Mayo and the north-west coast of Scotland – and new works from the Isle of Skye and the Craignish peninsula. These latest paintings by Hoare revealed to him how the journey has altered and developed his perception of the landscape and afforded a fuller insight that often comes from revisiting a place of inspiration.
Hoare has been painting ever since he left school – a vocational painter in the truest sense. The inspiration for his work goes back to some of his earliest memories of the forests around his Father’s farm in East Anglia. This was magnified by his experiences walking the pilgrim routes of England, France and Spain, drawing and recording all the way.
His first studio was at WASPS in Stockbridge, Edinburgh. During this time, he was a member of Edinburgh Printmakers and there received a strong grounding in printmaking methods which formed the basis to the drawing technique he uses today.
His work never stagnates, always evolving and moving forward, reflecting perhaps the experience of the pilgrimages. This is despite the apparent paradox of his regular return to stand on the same spot in the same locations seen in his work, year after year. The journey begins, rests and then continues with light, every step enriched by the experience of this light.
Hoare has worked in various countries (America and the Argentinian and Chilean Andes in 2016 and 2017), exploring the archetype of the ‘Mountain of Light’ as a guiding focus in these landscapes. Work that proved to be an excellent preparation for the two-year project and residence in Koumi, Japan, which led to the solo exhibition at the Kougen Museum of Art in 2018. On his return west, Hoare continues to return to the landscape especially on the West Coast.
Hoare’s work is held in public collections, such as Wiltshire County Council, C. Hoare & Co. Bank, Fleet Street, London, The Bridgeman Art Library, The Lowther Art Collection, and Falmouth Art Gallery.
