Born in 1977, Fergus lives and works in Brighton, East Sussex. He studied at Camberwell School of Art and Norwich School of Art & Design and won the Noel Spencer Annual Illustration Award Winsor & Newton Young Artist of The Year in watercolour at the Mall Galleries. Over the last 20 years he has shown in regular group and solo shows in London, across the UK and internationally in Europe and New York.
Painting and drawing in a range of media, Fergus Hare explores an interest in the Cosmos dealing with mainly landscape, often people, and sometimes the Moon.
Describing his work in a recent article in May 2023 during his latest exhibition in Chichester, Fergus explains, 'I started to get frustrated by being asked 'Where is that?' or 'Who is that?' when people looked at my work. It's my own fault from probably painting specific places and people for so long.
"The identity of the people and places in my paintings now mostly are not important and I want them to retain a certain ambiguity. I sometimes just number my work too as a direct protest of the literal titles I used to give my landscape work, such as South Downs at Sunset etc.
"I'm still asked those questions from time to time, but I'm hoping people will understand when they see the vague titles and the sometimes lack of detail on the faces of the figures. Instead, I'm trying to capture character and personality through the shapes of their posture and the way their clothes sit. I like the abstract qualities of them. I often deliberately leave sections of the painting unpainted or unfinished.
"I like to paint people in almost mundane settings. For the most part, the gathering of the people in the paintings are random, and the compositions are often dictated by the colours of their clothing. I don't really have a particular message. If I there is one, it's that I like to think about things in relation to the Cosmos. The definition of the Cosmos, as Carl Sagan put it, is everything there ever was, is or ever will be. I like that everything can be united that way. I think that when my work is viewed as a whole, then I can see that there might appear to be lots of different things going on, but to me it's all the same story that I'm telling. That's what the Cosmos is. I can only make the work that I want to make and I'm happy if it has a positive effect on the people who see it.
"I hope that people will take from my work what they want, and it will differ from person to person, and I think that's how it should be. I think art, like music, should carry its own relevance with the people who experience it. I'm hoping it will relate to people differently, and I certainly can't ask them to feel about my work the same way I do, for instance. So much information today is overshared. I think a sense of mystery is key to make work that will last."