Marguerite Horner: Numinous

The first publication on British artist Marguerite Horner presents her monochromatic, radiant and accomplished paintings inspired by a trip to Beachwood Canyon, California, and produced in 2023.

Numinous presents the monochromatic, radiant and accomplished paintings of British artist Marguerite Horner (b. 1954), inspired by a trip to Beachwood Canyon, California, and produced in 2023. The twenty-one watercolours and two oil paintings which make up the series of the same name depict flat expanses of sand, the sunlit sea, cacti, the silhouettes of distant people seen from above and occasionally American highways. They were first exhibited at the Crypt in St Marylebone Parish Church, London, in October 2023.

The first publication on Horner's work features a foreword by publisher and writer Matt Price, describing the charged, luminous moments depicted in the Numinous series and the significance of the natural world in the artworks. In his essay, multidisciplinary scholar Dr Matthew Holman discusses the setting of California and Horner's painting style within the context of British and American painting and her previous bodies of work. Her 2017 series Keep Me Safe portrayed her experiences of driving the Chiswick Comboni Missionary Sisters to the Calais 'Jungle' refugee camp while her 2022 exhibition Back to Verve showed small-town life and the eerie quiet of suburbia. Numinous builds on her previous series to further explore ideas of landscape, human behaviour and the metaphysical.

Through her watercolours and oil paintings, Horner explores the 'numinous', a concept defined by Lutheran theologian Rudolf Otto that indicates the presence of divinity. A keen observer, she is interested in the possibility of transcendence in everyday life and places.