Nick Bodimeade is exhibiting in Arundel to mark gallery's 20th anniversary

It will be at The Mill Studio, New House Farm Barns, Ford Lane, Arundel, BN18 0EF from July 15 to August 5.

Zimmer Stewart was founded in May 2003 and first showed Nick Bodimeade’s paintings in 2004 with an exhibition called Dogs, Trucks and Sheds. Since then he has regularly exhibited in solo and participated in group exhibitions at their Arundel gallery.

James Stewart, Zimmer Stewart founder, said: “Herd by Nick Bodimeade is an exhibition of South Downs and New Zealand landscape paintings featuring cows. These works continue the artist’s ongoing exploration of herd mentality: people acting together; forming small groups; creating personal space within the formation. This has mainly, but not exclusively, been in relation to people on a beach and specifically their way they spread themselves on the often limited space available.

“It is the same with cows. The group tends to act together. Each individual chooses behaviour in correspondence with others whether through imitation or as a response to some external force. Although unstructured, there may be two or more animals which are imitated by the bulk of the herd.

“Nick Bodimade is keen to draw comparisons between his herd paintings and Piet Mondrian’s early landscape works (circa 1901). The Dutch painter, often regarded as the father of modern abstract art, developed his trademark style in the 1920s. This is characterised by bold red, yellow and blue rectangles bounded by a black-and-white grid. But he spent his youth in rural Holland painting fields and rivers. These early works, including cows, featured high horizon lines and flattened spaces. In fact the Mondrian exhibition currently on at Tate Modern demonstrates that the early landscape paintings hinted at or foreshadowing Mondrian's mature abstract style.

“Composition, and more than a nod to abstraction, is important in these works, Nick encourages the viewer to move his/her eye over the painting using diagonals, horizontals, negative/positive space as well as focal points. Alongside the Herd paintings there will also be some of Nick’s Windblow woodland works.”

Nick has extensive teaching and advisory experience at a number of UK art colleges at Foundation, HND, BA and MA levels: Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College; University College Chichester; Canterbury Christchurch University College; Amersham & Wycombe College; Northbrook College, Worthing & North Oxfordshire College of Art and Design, Banbury and most recently at West Dean Collage of Art where his courses look at figuration to abstraction. Nick said: “The two main strands of my teaching are firstly developing the individual students' creativity and secondly putting practical art practice in a contemporary and historical context.”