In an era where dogs are more likely to have Instagram accounts, than appear in exhibitions, David Remfry has worked for over 15 years on a series of portraits that reveal the relationships between dogs and their owners.

Dogs have long been a common visual motif in Western visual art and have been called the artists best friend for their role as a companion and life model.

David Remfry, Michael and Dino.

Remfry, who is perhaps best known for his large-scale paintings often of people dancing, and urban nightlife, invited neighbours and friends to sit for him whilst working in his studio at the Chelsea Hotel in New York City. He discovered how many friends had dogs in New York when they started coming along for the sittings. Remfry was captivated by the moving tales of how they came to find each other, and the mutual understanding and sympathy of these partnerships. Some of the stories are shared with you alongside some of Remfry’s works in the exhibition as well as in small audio sound bites.

David Remfry, La Tasha Simmons and Kahula, 2010-12, photo Marcus Leith

The exhibition is called ‘We Think the World of You’, a title borrowed from the novel by J.R. Ackerley which tells the story of how Ackerley acquired his Alsatian, a pet immortalised in the 1956 memoir, ‘My Dog Tulip”.