Roni Horn

“Water is a form of perpetual relation, not so much a substance but a thing whose identity is based on its relation to other things. Most of what you’re looking at when you look at water is light reflection”. 

Horn’s large scale photographs of The River Thames 1999, illustrate her deep engagement, not only with water but with the natural world itself. Water is a big part of her practice, a symbol of fluidity and constant transformation. These three pieces from her series, I find have so much movement, water is rarely still and frequently unstable, these pieces are dark and polluted, but also beautiful, transitional and full of movement.

© Roni Horn – Still Water (The River Thames for example) 1999

© Roni Horn – Still Water (The River Thames for example) 1999

© Roni Horn – Still Water (The River Thames for example) 1999

Horn connects the instability of the water with our instability as humans. She invites the viewer to contemplate on their own experiences, their transparencies and reflections. These close observations of The River Thames, illustrate this moment in time, how water is never still, it’s unsteadiness and how sometimes it is completely uncontrollable, like us as people.

Horn translates the movement of water, how it changes, it’s continued fluidity and constant movement. These pieces are very engaging because of the closeness to the (image) water.

***

The instability that water can have, an extra inch of rainfall or a storm, could tip the natural flow of the river over the edge, nowadays it isn’t an unusual occurrence. The constant change in our weather, the unseasonably warm days in the middle of winter, are warning signs that something is very wrong. We are in the last week of February, 2025 and it’s 16 degrees outside, dry, warm, and a deluge of rain is on it’s way. Hopefully, as it has been so dry, the river is running low, well below the banks. If we only have surface water, we are really hopeful this winter we wont flood.

From Staines bridge looking towards Penton Lock. The River is just over some of the landing stages, but reasonable low. February 2025

The peer review was extremely interesting for me, I gained a lot of insight into how others see my work and ideas, and thoughts on how things could develop moving forward. Two sides of my practice are taking shape. Order and chaos, dark and light, winter and summer, and my love/hate relationship with water, with what each annual cycle brings. I have approached this assignment with a view to progressing my thoughts on further expansion and connections to the river and the surrounding banks.

Illustrating the darker, negative aspects of water in my life, the winter, the sinister, the foreboding blackness of what lurks underneath, with layered textures of the ripples in the water.

Acrylics on layout paper – A3

Acrylics on layout paper – A3

Using collagraphs, I assembled some of the debris I had found on the river banks, the rubbish, as well as the leaves and twigs, and unified them together in some sort of order, tame them into a structure, to enable me to print from them.

Acrylics on layout paper – A3 – using gel plate to make the marks

As the weather starts to turn slightly milder, spring hovering in the background, the colour lightens, becomes brighter, a broader selection of found objects are used to make the collagraphs.

Acrylics on layout paper – A3 – using gel plate to make the marks

Acrylics on layout paper – A3 – using gel plate to make the marks

Acrylics on layout paper – A3 – using gel plate to make the marks

Acrylics on layout paper – A3 – using gel plate to make the marks

Acrylics on layout paper – A3 – using gel plate to make the marks

Acrylics on layout paper – A3 – using gel plate to make the marks

Acrylics on layout paper – A3 – using gel plate to make the marks

Reflection.

Each winter changes the landscapes, with heavy water filling up places that are usually dry. Some areas along the river path spend weeks underwater, until the river subsides, and some parts of the environment never recover. Recording these moments in time, these memories, traces as well as losses, which I think to some extent we all suffer from. This loss of time which we would struggle to reverse, we have done so much irreparable damage to our natural world, both locally and globally.

Environmental artists such as Roni Horn, Jason deCaires Taylor and Olafur Eliasson, create beautiful, interactive and informative art with installations that the public can become involved in. Personally, I find these more informative in their education than the ‘stop oil’ protesters, although I certainly understand their passion, drive and frustration. Living near Heathrow airport and the M25, many a day has been heavily disrupted.

My process through these projects are to record and document my relationship with water, using it in varying forms and mixing it with different mediums, embracing the natural environment to collaborate with, creating imprecise pieces which are representative of the unstable, unknown and uncontrollable river. I also have really listened to my peers and will keep aspects of my research based on my personal knowledge and experience as this brings true authenticity to my work.

I haven’t yet started my CR and am conscious that by the end of April 2025, I should have a decent draft. The information I am documenting is all towards this. I was thinking about how environmental artists educate and influence us through their installations, also their passion for climate change and using their voice to reach as many people as possible.

Other.

Moving forward for the next projects I would like to experiment with the maps, maybe some collage and layering of the data, with some fake money. Also experiment more with the water, oil and coarse salt, these were very well received on the peer review. Pen and ink drawings of the aerial photographs. Pollution, microbes, drawing with stained paper, perhaps take algae form the river, as before?

I belong to two separate level 3 groups, run two sketchbook swaps and hosted my first crit this month.

References: es-for-example-76675/14

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/horn-still-water-the-river-thames-for-example-76675/14

Accessed 15th February 2025.

https://www.hauserwirth.com/artists/2790-roni-horn/

Accessed 15th February 2025.

http://www.panthalassa.org/water-as-a-form-of-perpetual-relation-by-roni-horn/. Accessed 25th February 2025.

Accessed 25th February 2025.