Since 2001, the Speaker’s Advisory Committee for Works of Art has appointed an official artist for each General Election. The artist follows the campaign trails around the UK and produces an artwork or artworks based on their observations. In 2015, Adam Dant brought his creative eye to the election. He shadowed the activities of all the main political parties and recorded his experience in ‘lightning sketches,’ filling over two dozen notebooks. These visual records informed his final work: an ink drawing on paper which serves as a ‘General Election Campaign Archive.’ The image brings together over 100 stories and events which the artist experienced on the election trail. ‘The Government Stable’ therefore brings together a ‘grand narrative,’ Dant explains, ‘knitted together as an encyclopaedic compendium.’
‘The Government Stable’ by Adam Dant
In this online exhibition, we have focused in on 10 of the scenes that form the bigger picture. Zoom into the artwork, and drag the image to see all the details. Click on the marked rectangles on the artwork to discover more. You can make this interactive viewer full screen using the button in the top right hand corner.
You will find a full key to the artwork, explaining over 100 parts of the composition, at the end of this online exhibition.
Two Welsh Student Labour Party supporters dressed as foxes and badgers. They are standing in front of an exhibition case which is displaying the brown leather handbag of Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood.
As Plaid’s party bus left Caernafon Castle on Saturday 2nd May, Dant observed a van full of Labour supporters in pursuit, dressed as woodland animals. They were protesting in response to recent remarks by Wood on fox hunting.
This is a memorial statue for a soldier from the Gordon regiment, which stands in Inverurie, Aberdeenshire. Dant described the town as pleasantly ‘Provençal,’ with ‘its neat, impressive town hall glistening in bright sunshine as locals gather in the market square to await the arrival of the SNP party leader, Nicola Sturgeon.’
She visited Inverurie on 18th April to accompany Gordon Alex Salmond (an SNP candidate) on a walk. ‘Shall we have a wee selfie?', Sturgeon asked a group of children with SNP stickers plastered to their foreheads: a coming together of new and old (or analogue and digital) ways of campaigning.
Inside the Arcellor Mittal Tower at Queen Elizabeth II Olympic Park, London, it is Friday 24th March. The Labour Party is launching its campaign in the viewing gallery. Ed Milliband’s lectern stands before a panoramic view of London. Dant remarked that 'the party leader was introduced by an NHS nurse entering through a receiving line of cheering Labour Student activists.’
Brian May, the guitarist for the rock band Queen, featured in the election campaign of the Green Party on the 13th April. He joined the MP for Brighton Pavilion, Caroline Lucas, to promote his ‘common decency’ campaign. This campaign sought to free Britain of corruption and inequality and stood against badger culling—a political issue through the election. He handed enamel brooches to the press and to supporters, which he holds here in a sweet jar.
In April of 2015, the Pylon Appreciation Society weighed in with their thoughts on the design of a new pylon launched that month: the ‘T.’ On the 9th of the month, leader of the Conservative Party (and incumbent Prime Minister) David Cameron visited the National Grid Training Centre in Newark, Nottinghamshire. This giant circuit breaker served as a backdrop to a Q&A with apprentices. The new pylon design stood nearby—a symbol of debates during this election about energy, fracking, the climate, and skills and training.
The Liberal Democrats Party launched their campaign in pouring rain in a park in Abingdon on Thames, 29th March 2015. Candidate Leyla Moran was contesting this seat, aiming to unseat the Conservative incumbent Nicola Blackwood. Dant’s eye was caught by the roadside daffodils on the verge. Planted in the middle of the flowers is the 300th ‘stake post’, placed by the party outside a house in the constituency.
This large mural of a blue whale was spotted in the North Laine area of Brighton. Here, on 13th April, the Green Party leader Natalie Bennett stood before the cartoon cetacean to launch the party’s ‘Vote Brave’ campaign.
This vignette transports us to Smith Square, London, on the 30th March. The United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) leader, Nigel Farage, launches a ‘pledge card’ (a campaign device committing to future action on an issue or in support of particular causes). Farage is surrounded by a ‘media scrum’ and the scene emphasises the centrality of the press to election campaigns.
Dant described this scene as a ‘tangle of photographers cameramen sound operators, notebook clutching hacks, step ladders and boom microphones pulsates like a kind of outdoor-wear clad jellyfish. Drawing this number of flapping arms, legs and heads in a few seconds is a bit tricky.’
Thomas Hetherwick’s ‘New Routemaster’ London bus launched in February 2012. The Wrightbus factory in Country Antrim, Northern Ireland, manufactured the vehicle, and it was here that the Democratic Unionist Party launched their manifesto on 21st April 2015. In the background was the number 24 to Victoria, and the speeches were punctuated with klaxon noises from the production line. Buses are a motif of British elections and feature repeatedly in Dant’s drawing.
Dant noted that DUP leader Peter Robinson, Deputy Nigel Dodds, and Enterprise, Trade, and Investment Minister Arlene Foster timed their speeches to start after the factory whistle sounding elevenses had blown. At the time of the election, the DUP were the 4th largest party in the House of Commons.
The ‘frogman’ emerging from a test diving tank is Bob Thomson. Upon surfacing, he’ll be helped out of the tank by Nick Clegg.
The Liberal Democrat party leader visited the Divex Global diving equipment factory in Westhill, Aberdeen to support local candidate Sir Robert Smith.
Adam Dant (born 1967) tells visual stories through pen and ink drawings and printmaking. He works in the tradition of early printmakers who depicted everyday and urban life. He evokes 18th century sketch artists and the early coffee houses of London, which were busy hubs of political, literary, and artistic exchange. Dant is also interested in historical events that parallel what is happening now. His work as official election artist in 2015 channels these influences to capture the ‘zeitgeist of the moment.’
Watch the film
This three part video bring us Adam Dant’s journey to creating his election artwork.
