ATELIER 7881 - TEKSTÚRA

A visceral creator and visual storyteller, inspired by distinctive compositional intuition and an inherent understanding to create within the natural landscape, Marcii Magson invites viewers “to have conversations with all the various possible resolutions of abstraction that presents itself in the form of my paintings”.

Open to the idea of starting conversations with strangers, she’s eager to talk visitors through her latest exhibition, Tekstúra, explaining the mark-making, brush strokes and line drawing that makes up this body of work. While this process allows for an interactive approach to understanding the creative thought behind her artworks, Marcii simultaneously aims to inspire others to look more carefully at the world around them and so discover a similar obscurity in unusual places.

Tekstúra comprises monochromatic artworks created through the practice of mixed media, collage, painting and audiovisual short films. The artist describes her current solo exhibition as “the fruit of extensive experimentation with texture and surface to overturn painting’s traditional conventions, seeking to liberate art from representation and narrative.”

Toying with the use of raw cotton and canvas by soaking it in various liquids, paints and glues, a series of mixed-media paintings – layered, scratched, folded or marked – led to the conception of the Pallid Series. With a focus on the word’s meaning as colourless, it highlights the idea of putting the artistic focus on the canvas through a journey of texture rather than colour and transforms the canvas into the subject of the piece.

“The aim was to produce a pale that is not an arctic landscape, not a material with meaning or beauty, not a visual sensation or a symbol, nor anything else, but a pale textured surface that is simply a pale textured surface and nothing else.”

The exhibition also includes a series of monochromatic geometric paintings featuring broad brushstrokes of pale colours and bold black markings that focus on the materiality and tangibility of surface texture. Manipulating the canvas and activating it through energetic strokes, splashes, and drips of paint, the technique saturates the surface in black, tones of skin colours and shades of white. The resulting works, best described as objects, are dramatic composites that serve as testament to an intuitive and spirited practice.

Blessed with a natural sense of creativity, Marcii started her artistic training towards the end of high school, in the form of night classes in black and white photography. After developing an eye for composition and light, over the following years she sharpened her skills through the moving image, where aspects of concept and narrative were accentuated, before taking on the world of layout, design and branding, combining it all in the form of advertising. Her career took her from advertising to the fashion industry and back again to advertising (launching an agency with a colleague), but after experiencing a feeling of being stuck, she broke free from the commercialised art world and braved a stint in a few non-profitable projects, “to get my soul back and find my balance”.

In 2011, Marcii founded the conceptual design studio, Clrs & Co. where she was Creative Director for four years, working mainly in interior architecture and retail, before moving to Namibia in 2016. A move she holds as one of the highlights of her career, she states, “moving to Namibia was a major change in my state of mind and well-being. It also had a huge impact on my life and work as an artist. I had time to paint, experiment and work in a studio full time. I am still doing design consulting but can decide to take on a project as art has become pivotal to my everyday existence. I produce extensive work and take part in as many exhibitions as possible. I also feel I have established a signature in my practice.”