Press release

The investigation of words, language and letters and how they exist in the body through the medium of painting has been at the center of Rebecca Watson Horn’s practice for several years. Her works begin with a written phrase, an intention or a spell that becomes plastic through the gestural application of paint on a rough burlap surface. Its meaning becomes erased or obfuscated in the process of becoming a painting. The vowels of the phrase are removed, emphasizing the shape and the weight of the lines. Her characters become autonomous, unruly forms, inviting the viewer to read through them in the light of their own experience.

“The Secret Life of Vowels” will present two strands of her ongoing linguistic and material investigation: a series of see-through, suspended works on wide-weave burlap named Semaphores, and a series of compressed, thick burlap canvases called Sigils: a term borrowed from ancient witchcraft and medieval occult traditions to designate a symbol, often a monogram, that condenses an intention.