A Faith in Painting: Michael Horn

South Quay Gallery, White Room.

Michael Horn is a British painter whose career has combined rigorous formal training with a lifelong engagement with landscape, abstraction and the possibilities of paint.

He studied at St Albans School of Art from 1960-64, where his early talent was recognised with the Unilever Prize in 1965. The following year he was a finalist for the prestigious Prix de Rome and subsequently became a Fellow of the Digswell Arts Trust, an important centre for emerging British artists.

Horn taught in London for many years, including at the City Literary Institute, while maintaining his own practice. His work has been exhibited widely in Britain and internationally, including exhibitions associated with the ICA, Victoria and Albert Museum, Kettle’s Yard, the Norfolk & Norwich Festival and MIART, Milan.

Since moving to Norfolk, the landscape has become an increasingly important source for his painting. Yet Horn is not a conventional landscape painter. His works occupy a distinctive territory between observation and abstraction, transforming remembered places, paths, horizons and changing light into carefully structured compositions.

Working in oil, collage, graphite, crayon and mixed media, Horn balances expressive mark-making with a strong underlying geometry. His paintings reward close looking: familiar elements emerge and recede within layers of colour, line and texture, creating works that are at once atmospheric, intelligent and deeply personal.

Among his continuing themes are the landscape of Norfolk, journeys and pathways, the sea, and the studio itself. His Weavers Way and Towards the Sea works are particularly characteristic of his ability to evoke a sense of place without resorting to literal description.