Harrie Fasher announced her arrival as a force in Australian art in the 2017 Sculpture by the Sea at Bondi, with a large-scale work called The Last Charge. Eight life-sized horses made from rusty steel clustered on the ridge at Mark’s Park, in homage to the famous charge of the Light Horse at the Battle of Beersheba on 31 October 1917. Seven horses galloped frantically into battle, one lay dead in their wake.
This piece, which should have been purchased for the Australian War Memorial, now resides in Adelong, as part of the Snowy Valleys Sculpture Trail. If you go looking for it, don’t expect something in a classical vein. Fasher’s horses are made from shards of metal welded together to create a stark and deathly impression. They conjure up thoughts of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse from The Book of Revelation, only there are no riders involved.
Fasher was an equestrian before she became an artist, only commencing studies at the National Art School in 2007, at the age of 30. The horse was a natural subject for her, but the scale and dynamism of The Last Charge was a testament to the strength of her artistic ambitions and superhuman reserves of energy.