Jennifer Hogwood has gained a sizeable collector base over the years with her depictions of cows. Her charming, witty, original paintings, sculptures and limited edition prints of highland cows are sold in galleries around the world.
Self-taught, Hogwood creates embellished compositions of her beloved McMoos – aka the Highland cow characters.
Born in rural Bedfordshire, Hogwood has always been surrounded by rolling fields full of cows and horses. Citing the presence of these animals as her inspiration – “they have such individual personalities and a lovely innocence about them” – Hogwood’s images demonstrate the affection she has for her subject matter.
Hogwood regularly creates new original paintings and prints much to the delight of her collector base.
In a recent interview Jennifer described her practice, a rare glimpse into her life with her words echoing her art.
“I’ve always been creative and I’m always out creating things and I’ve always loved making things, doing crafty things when I was younger. I was always making cards for people painting pictures, making jewellery etc. Things like that and I loved. Art It was my favourite subject to school. I did it at GCSE. I studied law at university so I couldn’t do Art at A-Level but as they wouldn’t accept Art as a subject, I couldn’t pursue it. So I carried on painting in my spare time.
Then after I got married, I moved into a house with my husband and we had no money. The house was covered in magnolia walls so I thought - I have to paint something myself. Create something to cover it up. So I went and bought some canvases and paint and sat on the living room floor and just painted whatever I felt like, there were lots of random things, abstracts and seascapes and flowers
People loved them my friends and family wanted to buy them, it’s all grown from there really.
Animals are what I've always really wanted to paint. I have painted other things but animals are my main love and focus. something but animals are my main focus and Highland cows are probably my favourite animal. I just love them. Every time I see them I love their hair. Their crazy hair. I love their massive horns. I love that. They're just so cute and endearing and they just make you smile when you see them. They're so tough. They live in the Highlands and the harshness of their environment really contrasts with the way they look and the way I feel about them, I love that."
