Cholla- the painting horse

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A horse whose paintings sell for more than £2,000 each and have been bought by celebrity fans including jailed US cook Martha Stewart is to have his own exhibition in Venice.

Cholla - pronounced Choyah after a desert cactus - is a 23-year-old mustang cross owned by a ballerina from Reno, Nevada.

The creative equine uses his mouth to hold a brush and paints on an easel-mounted canvas in his paddock.

He has already been sold to collectors in New York and Las Vegas, including Miss Stewart.

Cholla's colourful, abstract work has so impressed an art gallery in Venice, Italy, that they are planning an exhibition of it next Spring.

Owner Renee Chambers, 51, said she first noticed Cholla's hidden talent four years ago when she painted the fence of his paddock.

She said: "He seemed really interested in what I was doing then one day my husband Robert joked to me that I should give Cholla a brush.

"He hasn't looked back since then, I give him the canvas and the paint and he just makes these wonderful pictures.

"He does sometimes get a little bit of paint on his muzzle, so it's a good thing he paints with water colours."

She said she squeezes the paint out of the tube for him, puts the paint on the brush and hands it to him, but insists that is the extent of her involvement.

"It's only Cholla applies paint to his creations, and no one moves or rotates the paper or easel," she said.

"Sometimes he knocks over the easel and he looks at me like 'pick that up I'm enjoying that'.

"I have thought he might be the reincarnation of a famous artist, maybe Monet or someone, but the one thing he is definitely is a horse who loves to paint."

She said that even though Cholla was a horse, she believed all animals had the ability to be creative.

She said: "Art is an expression of intelligence and animals are capable of thought and creative intention, so why should God give the gift of creation to humans only?

"God loves us all, great and small."

Rosalba Giorcelli, from Galleria d'arte Giudecca, who are showing his work, said when she first saw Cholla's art she did not realise it was painted by a horse.

She said: "We exhibited it at a recent art fair, and the reactions by the public and the artists were enthusiastic.

"They all understood we did not want to diminish any human artist's artwork, but we wish to contribute to a debate about contemporary art."

Art critics have also have been impressed with the unusual artist's work.

One US critic wrote: "Cholla clearly grabs me and holds me as I watch him paint with the fire of Pollock and fixed gaze of Resnick."