Peter Howson

Swarm

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About this artwork

Swarm reflects the socio-political tensions leading up to the general election in the UK in 2015 and the prospect of a referendum on leaving the European Union. The painting was included in Howson’s 2015 exhibition Demokratia, the ancient Greek term for ‘rule by the people’. Howson presents a cast of grotesque characters and the breakdown of social order. He references the Morlocks in H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine, a savage, post-human species who feed upon the passive.

Published September 2022

  • artist:
    Peter Howson (born 1958) Scottish
  • title:
    Swarm
  • date created:
    2015
  • materials:
    Oil on canvas
  • measurements:
    183.00 x 244.00 cm
  • object type:
  • credit line:
    Gift of Chris Bartram, via the Flowers Gallery, 2022
  • accession number:
    GMA 5766
  • gallery:
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Peter Howson

Peter Howson