THE MARKS WE LEAVE BEHIND
The Marks We Leave Behind
— a joint exhibition to inaugurate the new BELLHAUS Atelier & Galerie in the Grüner Kranz complex that opens in Windhoek on the 11 of March.
Starkly contrasting works of abstract artist Marcii Magson and oil portrait and still life painter Marianne Chapman make up the virgin exhibition of the brand new Bellhaus Atelier & Galerie.
The Marks We Leave behind is a visual contemplation of the effect and impact that we as human beings have on the people we love and the impact we have on the world we live in.
It is the living proof of how we process our marks and make art of it.
In our yearning to know and be known, we often resort to symbolic, artistic manifestations to bridge our conscious and subconscious states of being and our inability to articulate it.
Art is braille for the soul, to comprehend what it cannot see and The Marks We Leave Behind is a journey across that bridge.
Marcii Magson
Marcii Magson is the owner of Atelier 7881, Namibia, a Conceptual Design Studio for clients in the artistic, interior architecture, and retail industries. She is an authority in conceptual, visual and spatial identities, with more than 20 years of experience in Interior architecture, fashion, retail, photography, visual merchandising, and graphic visual identity development.
Marcii’s art is tactile and sculptural, often multi-dimensional. Profoundly influenced by Minimalism and the Bauhaus movement, her work is abstract and conceptual, open to be felt rather than seen.
“My material-driven process is deeply minimalist in appearance, resonating with enigmatic structures and ideal sculptural forms. By placing emphasis on the process and act of artistic creation, rather than a stylised compositional narrative, my work is as conceptual as it is physical. I am inspired by art through the process of craftsmanship. I like to get my hands dirty, get in there, figure it out and work hard.
‘The Marks We Leave Behind collection reflects on the memories we have of our past, both real and imagined. Working through the layers of truth and altered truths and these paintings are the results of a discovery process.
‘I like to find and recycle materials that I collect from my travels, or just in the city where I live and work.
The raw material allows me to give shape, texture, sense, and form to my memories. Then comes the recovery phase, with charcoal, oil, or paint. I like to mislead the eye, to give a mineral appearance that suggests a certain heaviness when it is not. Fragile and light, dark and heavy, these painting sculptures exist through the process.”
THE MARKS WE LEAVE BEHIND
What are we but the sum of our parts…
What are our parts… but the memories of our past…
What are our memories…
The versions or ability to remember… recollect… reminiscence…
Impressions…?
Marks…?
Some memories are souvenirs…
Some are marks…
Some are light
Some are dark
-Poem by Marcii Magson
Contact details for Marcii:
081 4036682
marciigoose@icloud.com
Marianne Chapman
Marianne Chapman is an artist, designer and art director. She started painting as a child and it has been part of her life ever since. Not encouraged to pursue art as a career choice, she studied graphic design and proceeded to work as a designer and art director in the advertising and design industry.
Yet always, an interesting texture, a combination of colours, images and imaginings continued to lure her to the canvas.
With the time and food-for-thought afforded by lockdown, Marianne’s work acquired a definitive new dimension. Processing through paint and light, the work became code for her experience. Deeply conscious of her influence on her two young children, how she will impact them and how they will experience her became a theme of thought that informed her art and her perception of herself as an artist.
“The subject of my art is the process, every action and choice is a testament as to where we are. We create and shape our reality by just being in it, my art is the evidence of this.
Each mark represents a moment within the process, every aspect of the artwork is influenced by the circumstances of the artist within which she paints.
I hope to connect with the viewer through this honest interpretation of how the artwork came to be.
What is a person, if not the marks they leave behind? The permanence of art provides the evidence of my life.”
Although the art they produce is fundamentally different in presentation, both artists work intuitively and wait for the process to reveal itself as a final product. If you scratch the surface of any of their paintings you might just find layers of previous thoughts and work, buried, sanded down, repurposed.
What ends up surviving the process is for you to behold.
Contact details for Marianne:
+264 81 124 2106
