MARGUERITE HORNER | NUMINOUS: An Exhibition of California Seascapes

We are delighted to present Numinous, our inaugural exhibition of the works of British artist Marguerite Horner. This is a series of radiant and highly accomplished grisaille paintings that emerged from a sustained engagement with the Pacific Ocean along the shores of Del Mar and Malibu. Here she often watched the sunrise from Big Rock and spent hours observing the sea and the reflected light.

Horner notes that “I became absorbed by the mutable relationship between light and water - a continual dialogue of reflection, rhythm, and dissolution. Through this experience, light revealed itself not merely as a visual phenomenon, but as a vessel for perception, emotion, and presence.”

Often depicting refections of the rising sun on the Californian coast the paintings typically are from that of an observer from a slightly raised position. Expanses of puddled sand, a sunlit ocean, rolling waves, breaking surf and sea foam may be interrupted by groups of cacti, fences, silhouettes of distant figures or occasionally a highway and cars. 

Captured images start Horner’s creative process, before she reformats and desaturate them. Her extraordinary control of the medium, seemingly effortless, transforms simple observational images into delicate paintings imbued with emotion and feeling.