Lesley Anne Ivory

Hers is a unique view of the feline sphere ranging over a thirty-year period of mature consistency with highly wrought images that surprise and delight. These artworks are jewels melded into the complex settings of real life from ancient civilisations to curvilinear modernity. This is work of a very high order and puts her in a class apart. She is the Portrait Laureate of Cats, each picture a special event, as she captures and celebrates the supercilious beauty of cats, their caprice, their curiosity and their cunning. As a cat artist she is peerless. In 1988, Lesley and I put on the first of many successful exhibitions together. Now, with this remarkable show, displaying 12 years of intense creativity, she still has the ability to make me catch my breath at the beautiful sheen of her artwork, to marvel at her intensity and to applaud her relentless novelty and invention. Ivory Cats inhabit, decorate, enhance and add some meaning and pleasure to the world that we share, with the cats taking in turn what they wish - in feral complacency - from an imposed domestic partnership. They are the court jesters to our anthropomorphic kingship.