Bio:
Pat Horner's work is in numerous private and public collections including the Minneapolis Institute of Art and the Center of Photography at Woodstock. She has lived in Willow, NY since 1994 and has exhibited in numerous galleries in NY, Paris, Seattle, Houston and Minneapolis. Her work has been published worldwide.
Artist Statement -
Painting:
Painting is a language more powerful than words. It can express deeper thoughts through the subconscious while addressing contemporary problems. When looking at art, I ask myself what does it "feel" like, rather than what does it "mean." Nature is not limited to what we see - it includes one's psychic makeup as well. I communicate my perceptions of the world by probing beyond the ordinary and by addressing the mind and heart as well as the eye. By creating relationships of form, color and line, I wish to invent a unified world, if only on paper. Our world is often discordant, messy and complicated, not easy to understand…it is both theoretical and practical. Do not look for meaning or obscure formulas in my work. Each painting relates to thoughts, ideas and feelings in myself and at times, pure joy.
Splashes, drips, circular and calligraphic shapes co-mingle with landscape references to suggest all of nature, not only the "seen" elements. Instinct and emotion compose these experiments while rhythm, light and fragmented forms interact with memories of my experience and desires.
Mixed Media and Photo Collage:
By using prints, paintings, fabric, found images from books and magazines, as well as my endless supply of photographs I try to find links for each combination while constructing oppositions and establishing a narrative for emotional and poetic response. At times a beautiful ironic language arises from these juxtapositions that mystifies and abandons an idealist conception of art – provoking reflection.
Life is fragmented and artificial and by building a new vision of what one perceives as “art”, I try to tap intuitive wisdom and reassemble the illusion of reality. I want to push boundaries, to merge and create a new way of seeing and looking at life – these are my goals.
There is an uncertainty in looking at work outside the known realm of photography, painting or sculpture. Since our current culture seems to transcend time or place, mixed media is for me the common language seeking to carry temporal feelings into and out of a higher reality. To create work this way pushes me further towards understanding our complex time.