Catherine Marshall finds beauty, fun and a new political consciousness in Marie Hanlon’s latest work
Catherine Marshall: Marie, I’ve admired your abstract paintings at the Rubicon Gallery since the 1990s. Your last exhibition incorporated sculpture, installation, photography and video – everything except painting. Could you trace the pattern from then to now, starting with the paintings?
Marie Hanlon: I encountered the work of American artist Agnes Martin (1912–2004) at an early stage. I gained a kind of reverence for painting, especially abstract painting. I devoted years to it, always trying to get that fine balance between control and freedom. I think this is what is so special in Martin’s work: the subtle variations, the almost imperceptible irregularities which humanise the work. My own early paintings tended to be dark, with small areas of brightness. There was always some restlessness pushing against the structure. Finished pieces look easily achieved, reductive, simple, but the process can be long and arduous. In my very first catalogue (1996), I quoted ‘Adam’s Curse’ by WB Yeats to express this idea: ‘A line will take us hours, maybe; Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought, Our stitching and unstitching has been naught’. 1 At a later stage I did battle with white. White is such a beautiful colour, so symbolic and full of associations. It resisted my efforts at every turn, but I persisted.
Unravelling the sequence of carving on the stones has been challenging but has been helped by the fact that there are so many examples to study, writes Elizabeth Shee Twohig
