Roni Horn

‘For Roni Horn, drawing is not static. It is a process: a way of thinking, a way of being, and a way of remembering her experience of place in and through the world. As such, her approach to the discipline is an allegory of discovery and invention. It is intuitive, improvisational, intimate, and so fundamental and necessary to her that she compares it to the life-sustaining act of breathing.’ (White, M. 2019; 15)

 

This quote is so pertinent to me. Horn’s way of navigating drawing practice with such coherence and precision, the dialogue and explanations, act as the foundations of my own understanding – it is through these words and quotes from Horn, or that have been written about Horn, that I accumulated a voice with which to underpin my own relation to drawing practice. I found someone who talked about their way of making the way that I wanted to talk about mine. 

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That she should describe drawing as ‘a kind of breathing vocabulary on a daily level’ (White, M. 2019; 15) is so fascinating, its implications being that it is tied so closely to staying alive that it would be impossible to do without it. It makes drawing seem as though it’s a living thing too. Which is where I want to pull this into my referent to breathing. ‘Subjective marks [that] stop short of becoming a description of the world, they, paradoxically, coalesce in a certain impenetrability that is forever becoming…fluid, with-holding, present and as constant as breath – the works cannot be pinned down’ (White, M. 2019; 20). 

 

The way in which Horn captures ‘atmospheric conditions of elements’ such as the weather, but also on the ‘equally restless nature of perception of self’ (White, M. 2019; 15) is through a certain condensation. She builds ‘elemental materiality’ (White, M. 2019; 15) and pins it in place. ‘Characterized by distinctive behaviour’ (White, M. 2019; 15) shapes are ‘assertive, energy-filled…sit[ting] against each other’ (White, M. 2019; 16)

 

‘The uncertainty of what the dynamic forms are is matched by the series’ elusive and slippery titles. Containing adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions (yet, or, though, else) they modify, rather than define content…it is a conceptual method revolving around ideas of slippage and ambiguity’ (White, M. 2019; 16). They speak in terms of volume and capacity – things associated with breathing - and in this way the forms hint at the same time as the language. 

 

The limitations of Horn’s influence are where her works utilise photography and literature. Here, they depart from mine and, for me, move away from the embodiment that I seek and instead are more to do with looking, the act of looking and identity on a conscious level accompanied by a focus on words themselves, idioms and speech.