Sim Smith is delighted to present Sarah Miska’s first solo exhibition in the UK, The Hunt. The exhibition is a continuation of Miska’s investigation into themes of control through equestrian motifs, visual tropes and associations. For this exhibition, Miska has focused her gaze on the British tradition of hunting; its history, rules and rituals. The paintings act as a site for social critique and wider deliberations on power relationships, pursuit and risk.
Miska is a contemporary American painter, who for a long time has been fascinated by the horse, its rider, its wider cultural associations and mysteries. A painter of equestrian ornamentation, it was only a matter of time before Miska delved into the visually striking world of British hunting. With this exhibition she has given us the gift of a journey, through time but also into a world questioning class politics, privilege and social hierarchy, not exclusively within British tradition, but within the wider international context today.
Miska seduces us with the sheer spectacle of it all, with images so beautiful and staged that they almost seem satirical. These outrageous embodiments of swank aristocracy are evidence that the rules of the game have not changed for centuries, “there is something not only dangerous about the continuation of tradition but also something very beautiful about it…”
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Sarah Miska, July 2025.
She plays with this dichotomy throughout the exhibition, flaunting Scarlet Red Cavalry Twill jackets and pristinely groomed horses amidst an air of menace and intimidation.
Fox hunting displaced stag hunting in 18th Century Britain, justified by the need to exterminate the animal on account of it breaking into coups and gobbling up farmer’s chickens. The call for the ban on fox hunting, however, “has as much to do with class politics as the love of animals…and is as much about relations between greater and lesser humans as it was about humans and animals”
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Jonathan Jones, The Guardian “The unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable”, March 2002.
Humans, horses, foxes and hounds appear in equal measure in this exhibition. Miska shows empathy for the hunted in her work, celebrating the animal’s vitality and beauty in Tally Ho (2025) where the fox is seen suspended, perfect and given almost iconographic status. The iconography of the fox is well documented in the art of the hunt historically, possibly most famed by the 19th Century artist John Nost Sartorius’ painting, The Earl of Darlington Fox-Hunting with the Raby Pack (1804 – 1805). His classic scene depicted red coats astride horses flanked by hounds with one red coat holding a fox above his head to preserve it from the lashing hounds below.
Miska pulls these traditional scenes into the contemporary through the found images she uses and the tight scenic crops that have become synonymous with her work. She pieces images together from an abounding tapestry of sources including social media, she is a true voyeur of the world she portrays and was one time a part of. Miska rode as a child and so much of what she makes retains the sentiment of a child like fantasy worlds. The crops reference intimate moments, so close you feel like you are there, one of the pack, in the saddle and on the hunt. Mirroring and doubling occur increasingly in Miska’s work, contemplating the idea of reflection, the double image or double meaning which is so potent in this exhibition. There are two sides to every picture, to every story.
These meticulous paintings start with quick underpainting, there is a sense of the thrill and risk in following the form in this free way of working. Then it changes, control takes over. Individually painted fine hairs and details are tenderly and fastidiously painted over many hours, wrinkles in jackets where weft threads are interlaced with each vertical warp and brass buttons feel so real that they might fall from the canvas. Miska is in pursuit of her reward throughout her process, perfectly executed works that straddle control, tradition and risk, all looked at with a highly critical eye.
The beauty and formality in her work are undeniable but the trail she follows is complex. The paintings can be admired simply for their splendour or their acute accuracy, however there are multiple tendrils that grow beneath the soft undergrowth of these works. They speak to the chaos of the world we are living in and the importance of questioning those in control, the pursuit of power and how far humans will go to achieve it. The Hunt is merely a vehicle by which to observe.
Sarah Miska (b. Sacramento, CA) received her BFA from Laguna College of Art and Design in 2007 and her MFA from Art Center College of Design in 2014. She has had solo exhibitions at Lyles & King, New York; Micki Meng, San Francisco; Night Gallery, Los Angeles; and Hernando's Hideaway, Miami. Miska's work has been featured in group shows at Matt Carey-Williams, London; Masey Klein, New York; Praz-Delavallade, Los Angeles; Spazio Amanita, Los Angeles; Below Grand, New York; Dread Lounge, Los Angeles; Super Dutchess, New York; and Wilding Cran Gallery, Los Angeles, among others She is a 2022 subject of "In the Studio," W Magazine's culture series, Frieze Magazine, Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles Artillery Magazine, among others. Her work belongs in the permanent collections of the Institute for Contemporary Art, Miami and Long Museum, Shanghai. Miska lives and works in Los Angeles.