Gregory Rankine

Gregory Rankine graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 1996 and since that time has exhibited in the UK and abroad, including Glasgow, London, Dublin, Limassol and New York. After a six-month residency in Cyprus, he was co-presenter on the BAFTA-nominated SMG television programme, Trout’n About. Rankine won the N.S. Macfarlane Trust Award, Royal Scottish Academy (2007). Rankine’s work is widely collected in the UK, Ireland, France, Finland and the USA including The Woolwich and The Prince’s Trust.

Rankine’s horses are not portraits of bloodstock, but evocations of the strength, elegance and movement embodied by the animal. They could be luscious exercises in visual rhythms, or competitors in the race of the Equirria. This Roman festival in honour of Mars, the god of war, involved a spectacular, riderless race between the best horses in the cavalry, competing for the privilege of religious sacrifice. The power and sensitivity of these beasts draws us into what could be a narrative, but is also a celebration and close examination of the sublime: the shine on a horse’s flank, the might of stormy skies. Physical strength combines with the weight of a narrative outside of history. Power, in its most elemental manifestation, is everywhere.