On Animals, Instinct & A Few Local Characters | The Sunday Journal No.4
Yesterday we opened Local Characters, our latest exhibition centered around animals with a little too much personality to simply be called “wildlife art”. There’s something refreshingly unserious about a show like this. Swans with suspicious expressions, cats looking faintly offended, dogs ecstatic mid-flight, creatures caught full of emotion.
What ties the work together isn’t really the subject matter, but the idea of character itself. The artists aren’t just painting animals - they’re noticing temperament, awkwardness, vanity, stubbornness. The very human habit of projecting ourselves onto the natural world feels fully embraced here.
The show also gave us the chance to introduce a few new artists to you.
Matt Rix brings a folk art style to the exhibition. His works have humour to them, but they’re very carefully observed too - never tipping too far into novelty.
Matt Rix, 2026.
Saltwater Tale (2026), Matt Rix.
Matt says of his work,
"I paint animals because they are subjects I've always been drawn to myself, both as a painter and a collector of art. Living in the countryside in North Wales, I'm constantly observing the character and presence of both domestic and wild animals around me. Although the paintings are contemporary in style, I think they're also informed by earlier animal studies and folk paintings that I've long admired. I'm interested in creating pieces that feel slightly timeless - familiar, characterful and quietly atmospheric."
Matt Rix, painting, 2026.
And perhaps, probably the most unexpected addition to the show, Anna Sherburn. Anna works using vintage postage stamps, carefully arranging them and then mounting them onto board with pins like butterfly specimens in a museum.
Paws-a-Plenty (2025), Anna Sherburn.
Anna says,
"I love the visual language of specimen cabinets in natural history collections, where beautiful treasures are mounted on pins to invite close examination of the details."
Each piece showcases animal stamps from around the world – Japan, Poland, Jersey, Nicaragua, Kenya and of course the UK. Her piece ‘Wild at Heart’ showcases wild animals from around the world. Upon stepping back you realise they have been arranged in such a way as to form a subtle heart shape using the colours of the stamps.
Wild at Heart (2026), Anna Sherburn.
There’s something quite satisfying about including different approaches like this in one room. It stops the exhibition becoming too fixed stylistically and keeps the eye moving. Interesting conversations begin to happen between the works.
Which, really, is all you can hope for from a group show.
Next week we are going to meet another new artist, Fiona Thomson and learn about her obsession with dogs.
Until next Sunday,
Adam