O’sullivan’s strokes of genius her best by far
As if being married to Jamie Osborne is not tough enough, artist Katie O’sullivan has, since Royal Ascot, been locked in her studio with just BBC Radio 4 and Brexit for company and suffering a vitamin D deficiency for her art, preparing for her seventh exhibition at the Osborne Studio Gallery in Motcomb Street, London.
Illuminations, which runs from Thursday to Nov 28, is the most ambitious and challenging project she has attempted since she undertook a family portrait of Richard Hannon Snr, his wife, Jo, and their dog for the trainer’s retirement. Though Jo and the dog, who both look fabulous, were more than happy with the end result, Hannon reckoned she made him look old and “slightly inebriated”.
But, as the rest of the country imploded in chaos and indecision this summer, she made the decision to “go large or go home” for this exhibition, in my humble opinion her best by far.
There is a large painting titled The Kingmaker … A Legacy which centres on the great Northern Dancer and some of the super-sires he produced, a task she likened to painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling without ladders but, on the plus side, means she can almost hold her own at a Tattersalls drinks party now. Other subjects include Enable, Stradivarius and Frankie Dettori, but it is not all racing; another large work features British birds of prey circling in a vortex interspersed with songbirds, either a comment on the delicate balance of nature or a subliminal threat to her husband’s overuse of Twitter.
There are other animals and, though “bad Bobby”, the whippet which stars on her husband’s Twitter account, has failed to make the cut, there is a striking portrait of Sid, a lurcher (which I bred) owned by Lucy Hannon.
“Each time I do an exhibition I swear I am going to be finished early and organised and each time I fail miserably,” she said yesterday as the blank walls of the gallery awaited the arrival of her paintings. “The necessity of the looming deadline has to be present.”
Her only respite has been days out on the racecourse with her syndicate, comprising 11 women of substance. She was at Goffs Sales last year while in Ireland to paint Kodiac, the stallion. Osborne was herding her around the sales and a little filly kept saying to her: “Buy me, buy me,” so she did. The filly was by Declaration Of War, so they named her Hashtagmetoo and registered hashtag colours.
In nine starts, she has been out of the frame only twice. O’sullivan has so far resisted the temptation to tell her husband, the gifted trainer of the filly, that she is the most consistent two-year-old in the yard.
Sir Anthony Mccoy is the latest victim for racing’s very own Desert Island Discs, at the Queens Arms in East Garston, near Lambourn, on Dec 4.
John Francome and Mark Todd have already been subject to the inquisition in which they have to pick six songs, a book – might be a struggle for Mccoy, I’m not sure he has even read the ones he has “written” – and a luxury. A ticket, costing £35, will also get you a two-course dinner. Proceeds to Racing Welfare.