Sheep Trapped in a Stream

Signed mixed media on board, including waterolour, ink and wax resist.

Farrington as a young man bred cage birds and worked as a cow- and pig-man. Working up close with farm animals exposed him to both the beauty and the violence of the natural world and man’s place within it. A major theme of Farrington’s life work remained the agricultural cycles of weather and season: the driving of sheep to shelter in winter and slaughter in spring. Many of his paintings depict man trying, often with little success, to exert his control over the animal kingdom – sometimes transforming into the very beasts he hopes to master.