From his earliest magnetic and compass experiments, through to his horizontal line drawings in the exhibition "Four visions on the landscape" in Galerie Wit, Eric SnellI has always seen his work as a series of visual comments – a dialogue between the materials and the natural forces at work.
About these new works, he writes “It maybe to do with the years spent living on a small island, surrounded by sea, or it maybe something to do with my new ‘English’ landscape and those misty Wiltshire mornings, but over the last few months, I have become obsessed by the horizon – that point beyond. On the other hand it might be nothing to do with either my past or present environment but more connected with my own on-going internal conversation about how the materials, and the processes can help inform an outcome. I like the idea that the rainwater sitting in a bucket outside in the backyard, is being influenced and affected by the gravitational pull of the earth, just like the sea, and has found its own horizontal level.
So with this in mind, I take a piece of paper and dip the paper perpendicularly into the water. Depending on the quality and thickness of the paper and the amount of times the paper enters the water one is able to create a whole range of different types of watermarks. And then, by turning the paper the other way around and repeating the process one recreates that horizon – that tension and equilibrium where ‘heaven’ and ‘earth’ appear to come together while at the same time creating a ‘true’ horizontal line.
The new "Horizontal line edition" is very much an extension of these ideas, while also discussing the very process of hanging an artwork on the wall using a single nail, and then checking to ensure that the work is level – but in this case – it is not the frame that should be level but the line”.
Eric Snell obtained a BA (1st Class Hons) from the Hornsey College of Art, London. Exhibiting widely in Europe, North America and Japan, Eric Snell has, over the years, taught at a number of different art schools and universities. On returning to Guernsey in the early 90s he set up the first art school there. In 2007 Eric Snell initiated the Art and Islands Foundation, with the aim to raise the profile of the islands internationally.