Foxes have long been celebrated in illustrative form within the tomes of popular fiction titles, courtesy of the cultured hand of Beatrix Potter, Dr Seuss, Roald Dahl and Richard Scarry to name but four. Yet acclaimed contemporary artist, Gary Benfield also paints a mean fox if this, his latest visual foray is anything to go by. As we all know, ‘Reynard I’ is very much a pictorial piece to ‘go by’, and is typically Benfield in detail, ambience and depth of subject matter. What we have is a majestic fox in profile, intent and solely focused on its off-canvas quarry, weighing up its options and taking general stock of the situation presented to it. None of which we’re privy to, yet thanks to Benfield’s sublime artistic execution of the fox we can more than easily mentally imagine and visualize in our mind’s eye, nevertheless. A raft of luscious browns and golden weaves of fur suggest a depth that normally only a zoom camera lens could afford us, yet Benfield delivers with compositional finesse.