T H E S E E N A N D T H E U N S E E N

M A R G U E R I T E H O R N E R

Marguerite Horner Artist Statement 2011

My practice is concerned with the non-material, a reality we can access through contemplation and painting.

Today the moving image dominates our world and whilst visually powerful in so many respects, it denies us the opportunity for stillness and reflection. The value of a painting lies in its ability to induce a contemplative state in the viewer. As WalterBenjamin says 'before it the spectator can abandon himself to his associations.'

For me, the value of contemplation lies in its ability to reconcile the heart and themind into one. I'm inspired by Merleau-Ponty's observation that it is 'preciselybecause painting does not ‘copy’ things, and because it does not offer things tothought as does science but presents them immediately and bodily, in their depth and movement, that painting gives a true sense of the world and what it means to see it.'

Through my work I'm interested in enquiring into the ways in which man may berelated to the infinite. Upon the framework of this enquiry my paintings aim to investigate, amongst other things, notions of transience, intimacy, loss and hope. I use the external world as a trigger or metaphor for these experiences? and through a period of gestation and distillation, I make a series of intuitive decisionsthat lead the work towards completion.

A few years ago a stay in New York and Long Island was characterised by an intense period of recording image. My latest body of work was triggered and has subsequently emerged from that.

The Seen and the UnseenPaintings by Marguerite Horner

25 January – 25 February 2012PM Gallery & HouseWalpole ParkLondon W5 5EQ

Marguerite Horner

If you could say it in words, there would be no need to paint.

What I wanted to do was to paint sunlight on the side of a house.

Both remarks are from the revered painter of isolation, alienation and loneliness, making for the spectator poetry out of banality: the American Edward Hopper, (1882-1967). He wasthe seeker of scenes both in the countryside of New Englandand in big cities, from hotel rooms to those white framed colonial houses dappled with cool sunlight.

Marguerite Horner’s paintings are both vastly different butobliquely refer to these 20th and 21st century preoccupations, so that Hopper’s stance and commitment seem resonant andrelevant. Above all, Horner’s vision takes the ordinary, andmakes of it something elusive, subtle, haunting, poetic: thingswe all see but pass by. This is done without a sharp focussearchlight, but in tones and hues of the softest of mistycolours, that elusive look before the sun has burnt through, with a very occasional almost shocking blue and even red asstartling punctuation. But it is the modulated grey sky, theranges of cool whites which dominate. One title is In the Middleof Nowhere, but Horner reminds us that nowhere is alwayssomewhere. Above all her paintings leave such room for thereflections of the viewer’s imagination, space for us to respond.She does not tell, she shows.

The subject matter of Marguerite Horner’s paintings, almost allin her characteristic beguiling and fascinatingly subtle gradationsof silvery greys, are based on scenes glimpsed in small towns,occasional big cities, and rarely an excursion into nature, orrather, a segment of wooded landscape, the kind of wood that ison the edge of the road, where you might park your car andventure for a moment.

There are isolated houses, parking lots, and several scenes aredelineated, framed, marked by sequences of electrical or telephonic wires and poles and fences at verticals or diagonals. It is as though the spectator were looking through to the scenebeyond. These lines in space, and occasionally wintry trees theirbranches stripped of leaves, subtly anchor the solidity of housesand tangles of tree trunks. Human presences occasionallyobtrude, even intrude, but equally may be as essential and asrock solid as the buildings, roads and cars of the townscape.

Edward Hopper again: My aim in painting has always been the most exact transcription possible of my most intimateimpression of nature.

Hopper, eloquent yet reticent, speaks for many artists. Bynature he too meant the manmade, the environment peopleinhabit. But vision is transmuted always individually. And it isthe individual aspect of Horner’s paintings that capture the eye.The resemblance to any other artist is illusory and superficial,although of course a sense both of the history of art and design informs her work. It is much more a sense of a sharedmood, a profound commitment, and an extraordinary tenacityand determination.

Professionally, when starting out after her initial degree,Marguerite received further specialist training for what to laypeople must seem an arcane preoccupation, currently

transformed and changed beyond recognition in the digitalage, but then absolutely hand done: she became a scenepainter for BBC television, no stranger to the transformativequalities of paint, and to the art of illusion. She had a furthercareer as the visual collaborator with photographers and theprint media, a scene setter herself. Through these years sheexpanded a special understanding both of actual materials and of compositions, and of how visual messages were communicated. Then, briefs were set; now she sets her own.But she has spoken of the very nature of understanding theactual materiality of paint, on large and small scale, that theseyears amplified for her, not to mention the understanding ofarrangements and installations. It speaks to the confidentunderstructure of her compositions: and compositions theyare. Yet the profound difference is of course that here compositions are dictated by Marguerite’s mind’s eye, the individual gaze, with no collaboration with extrinsic demands.

Her current imagery is based on her own photographs mostlytaken during a prolonged stay in Long Island and New York.The more one looks at photographs, whether analogue or digital, one realises that the mechanics are just the beginning,the medium so to speak, as paint is; what matters, totally crucial, is the eye behind the camera.

Many of Marguerite’s images are captured as though the photographer was rooted to the ground; others from a slightlyelevated point of view (subliminally reminiscent of late 19th

century townscapes, from first or second story windows) andsome taken through the windows of commuter trains. Smalltown America has a long lineage of examination not onlythrough art but through literature, sometimes celebrated evensentimentalised, as in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, sometimesthe subject of tragedy, and sometimes as in the clusters ofsuburbia and commuter towns, a sense of emptiness, of liveslived elsewhere. Most people live in conurbations, but the myth of the small town, the village, remains strong, and particularly perhaps in America with its folk memory of NewEngland town meetings, of early participatory democracy. Andnow these shells of emptiness dominate, the stuff of thrillers –Harlan Coben comes to mind – of places from which to escape.The fact that we recognise Marguerite Horner’s current subjectmatter is itself a tribute to the myth, and we recognise thesescenes as backdrops to seemingly invisible lives, emotionallives, as sets if you like, sets created by myriad hands throughtime, and in many ways drained of life. These townscapes, and landscapes, and isolated houses with a play of light like Magritte – night glowing into day – are both concrete(although not necessarily reassuringly so) and insubstantial,almost like dreams.

Yet verbal descriptions can all too easily make MargueriteHorner’s paintings sound commonplace. The subjects maydeliberately partake of the substance of the day to day: butthe artist’s dexterity of hand, designer’s eye and heartfeltimagination lift the ordinary into the extraordinary, and thespecific into the universal. As her title for this current exhibition says, these paintings are about the seen and theunseen, the life behind the eye as well as the life in front of it.

Marina Vaizey CBE, 2012Lady Vaizey CBE is an art critic and author, formerly Art Critic for theFinancial Times and Sunday Times and editor of the Art Quarterly andReview. She has written several books on art and also has been a judgefor the Turner Prize.

‘In the Middle of Nowhere’ 2011, Oil on linen, 100cm x 100cm

‘Help’2011, Oil on linen, 100cm x 100cm

‘Creeping Shadow’ 2011, Oil on canvas, 50cm x 50cm

‘Into the Wilderness’2010, Oil on canvas, 50cm x 50cm

‘Come on lets go’ 2011, Oil on canvas, 50cm x 50cm

‘Exit’ 2011, Oil on linen, 50cm x 50cm

‘End Rd’ 2011, Oil on linen, 50cm x 50cm

‘The Guardian’ 2011, Oil on linen, 50cm x 50cm

‘The Adolescent’ 2011, Oil on canvas, 50cm x 50cm

‘Lost’ 2010, Oil on canvas, 50cm x 50cm

‘The Counsellor’ 2010, Oil on linen, 50cm x 50cm

‘Vanitas’ 2010, Oil on linen, 50cm x 50cm

‘Ineffably perceived’ 2007, Oil on canvas, 122cm x 92cm

‘Deserted’ 2011, Oil on canvas paper, 20cm x 20cm

Education:2001-2004: MA Fine Art Painting, City and Guilds of London Art School, London

• B.A, Honours Degree in Fine Art Painting: Sheffield University• Foundation: Lincoln College of Art

Group exhibitions:2011: National Open Art Competition Exhibition, Minerva Theatre, Chichester, Sussex2011: ING Discerning Eye , Mall Galleries, London SW12011: The MacGuffin, WW Gallery, Hackney Downs. London E5 2011: B&A Charity Exhibition, Yokohama Civic Art Gallery, Japan2011: Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy, Piccadilly, London W12011: Afternoon Tea, WW Gallery, 54th VENICE BIENNALE, Italy2011: FOUND: for Kettles Yard Development. The Brompton Garage, London SW32011: London Art Fair, WW Gallery in Project Galleries, Islington, London N12010: ARTSWAY OPEN 2010, ArtSway, Hampshire, UK, England2010: Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize, Painters’ Hall London EC4, England2010: ING Discerning Eye Exhibition, The Mall Galleries, London SW12010: Collaborators2, ROOM Gallery, Hoxton, London E2 2010: The Threadneedle Prize, The Mall Galleries, London SW12010: The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, The Royal Academy, Piccadilly, London W12010: Drink and Dial, WW Gallery, Hackney Downs, London E52009: C4RD Moot fourdayslong, Centre for Recent Drawing, London N12009: The Artist and the Garden, Moncrieff-Bray Gallery, West Sussex2009: Art in Action, Waterberry House, Oxfordshire. England2009: A Blast of Colour, Moncrieff-Bray Gallery, West Sussex2009: Summer Exhibition, Moncrieff-Bray Gallery, West Sussex 2008: Art for Youth, The Mall Galleries London, London 2008: The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, The Royal Academy, London W12008: Inside Out: Woman’s Work Art Group. Links Gallery, Winchester, England2008: London Art Fair, Islington, London N12007: TRANSITION, Beverley Knowles Fine Art, Notting Hill, London W10. 2007: Seeing is Believing, West Bridgford, England 2007: Id:entity: Woman’s Work Art Group. Aldershot England2007: London Art Fair, Islington, London N12006: Atmosfear, AIR Gallery, 32, Dover St, London W12006: StarDust, Star Gallery, Lewes , East Sussex, Lewes, East Sussex 2006: Art London Art Fair, Royal Hospital, Chelsea, London 2006: Lowood/BKFA Exhibition, Lowood Gallery, Cumbria 2006: 20/20 exhibition, Beverley Knowles Fine Art, London W10 2005: Discerning Eye Exhibition, Mall Galleries, London2005: Mirage of Minds, Century Gallery, Hoxton, London E22005: Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy, London W12005: Royal Society of Marine Artists, Mall Galleries, London SW12005: She Exists, Beverley Knowles Gallery, London SE12005: Affordable Art Fair, Battersea Park, London SW112004: The Oval Theatre, Kennington. London SE11

Solo exhibitions:2012: The Seen and the Unseen, PM Gallery, London W52011: Marguerite Horner, Lautrec Gallery, Chelsea Arts Club, London SW32010: A Series of Drawings, Pavilion Cafe, Dulwich Park, London2006: "Marguerite Horner solo exhibition", Star Gallery, Lewes, East Sussex

• Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield• Usher Art Gallery Lincoln

Competitions, prizes and awards:2006: Saatchi/Guardian Competition, selected by Tim Marlow, Guardian G2 2006: Shortlisted for Celeste Art Prize2004: Kidd Rapinet Award, for outstanding work at the MA Show, presented by

Sir Peter Blake, City and Guilds of London Art School

Auctions and Charity Exhibitions:2011: FOUND – sale to raise funds for Kettles Yard development2010: Austerity Xmas BogoF – in aid of NSPCC at WW Gallery, London2009: Exquisite Corpse – The Chelsea Arts Club Trust, London2009: Art for Youth – Mall Galleries. London2009: The Quentin Follies – Charleston. E. Sussex2008: Secret Art Sale – in aid of ‘SHELTER’ Levitt Bernstein Architects. London2007: Medical Foundation for the care of Victims of Torture., 26,Store St, London WC1 2006: York Freedom Auctions, supporting CAMFED

Residencies:2009: Hatley, nr Cambridge (Summer)

Public collections:Sheffield City Art Gallery

Private collections:Ireland; Switzerland; Cape Town; South Africa; New Zealand; England

Publications:2012: The Seen and the Unseen – catalogue essay by Lady Marina Vaizey C.B.E.2011: ING Discerning Eye Exhibition Catalogue2011: The MacGuffin – catalogue essay by Lady Mary Rose Beaumont and Anna McNay2011: Afternoon Tea – catalogue, with text by Cherry Smyth and Helen Sumpter, as Part of

the ‘UK at the Venice Biennale’ programme and the wider Biennale collateral exhibitions, 54th Venice Biennale

2010: Royal Academy Summer Exhibition Catalogue2010: Threadneedle Prize catalogue2010: ROOM’ Collaborators 2’ Catalogue2010: Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize Exhibition Catalogue2009: Artists and Illustrators- The Colour of Thought by Erik Empson2006: Marguerite Horner solo exhibition Star Gallery Lewes, introduction by Julian Bell2006: Viva Lewes: Alex Leith interview2006: Antiques Magazine: Is that what it is: Eulogies on the Exterior; Erik Empson2005: The Independent; Sue Hubbard

Arts Review; Francis Spalding – review of Mappin Art Gallery solo show

www.margueritehorner.moonfruit.com

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