Biography
Todd Horton lives and paints full time on Samish Island, Washington. His work involves landscape and wildlife with elements of chance that play between realism and abstraction.
His work was recently featured in Seattles' Davidson Gallery "Exceptional" show and awarded a "Merit of Excellence" from a PONCHO Art Auction. Horton's paintings were also featured at the Museum of Northwest Art group exhibition "Wild/Life" and in a solo exhibition at Whatcom Museum in 2007 titled "Love, Murder, Magic".
His paintings have been largely influenced from time living abroad in Berlin and Japan. Horton's process of creating/destroying merge to create a magical poetical realism that is once enigmatic and literal, opening the possibility of symbolic meanings. Yet the paintings are most importantly inviting and "beautiful", making us more sensitive to the world around us.
Artist Statement
A painting needs to reflect mystery, and if possible amplify it.
I want to end up with a painting that I haven't entirely planned. This method of chance, inspiration, and destruction may produce a specific type of picture, but it never produces a totally predetermined one. And in allowing an unplanned outcome, I hope to achieve the same coherence and objectivity that a random slice of nature always possesses.
What counts is the seeing. Anything can be painted. It's more difficult to see whether what one is doing is any good or not. What's important is not being able to do a something; it's seeing what it is. Seeing is the decisive act, and ultimately it places the maker and the viewer on the same level.
All my different paintings have one consistent foundation: me-my attitude and my intention which may be expressed in different ways but never essentially changes. The variety is superficial. One wears different clothes for different occasions; that has nothing to do with style.
Has painting reached its limit, everything done before? As long as people enjoy making paintings it can't die. It's perhaps fundamental to our being, for 40,000 years we have been making paintings. What other profession even comes close to that? Repetition is only boring when a painter's works are boring. Good art can't be made often enough.
......and what is art and how is it recognized? Like the sound of moonlight dripping through pines...
Resume
SOLO EXHIBITIONS:
2015 “Twilight of the Wyrd Wood” Cygnus Gallery, La Conner
2013 “New Paintings” Smith&Vallee Gallery, Edison, Wa
2012 “Between Seeing and Knowing” Smith&Vallee Gallery, Edison, Wa
2011 “From here to the Horizon” Smith&Vallee Gallery, Edison, Wa
2010 “Minor Keys” Smith&Vallee Gallery, Edison, Wa
2009 “Future Tense” Smith&Vallee Gallery, Edison, Wa
2008 “Present Tense” Smith&Vallee Gallery, Edison, Wa
2007 “Love, Murder, Magic” Whatcom Museum of Art, Bellingham,Wa
2006 “Salmon Series” Gulf of Georgia Cannery Historic site of Canada
2002 “Salmon Run” Bohin und Zue Gallery, Berlin, Germany
GROUP EXHIBITIONS:
2015
“War of the Foxes, Artists Respond” COCA, Seattle, Wa
Museum of Northwest Art: “Neo-Naturalists”
Cygnus Gallery, La Conner,Wa
Visions West Gallery, Bozeman, MT
SAM Gallery, Seattle, Wa
Matzke Fine Art Gallery, Camano Island, Wa
2014
Visions West Gallery, Bozeman, MT
SAM Gallery, Seattle, Wa
Matzke Fine Art Gallery, Camano Island, Wa
Simon Mace Gallery, Port Townsend, Wa
Cygnus Gallery, La Conner,Wa
2013
Simon Mace Gallery, Port Townsend, Wa
SAM Gallery, Seattle, Wa
Matzke Fine Art Gallery, Camano Island, Wa
Smith&Vallee Gallery, Edison, Wa
2012
“Exceptional”, Davidson Gallery, Seattle
“Dead and Alive”, CoCA, Seattle,
Arts Alive Invitatioal, La Conner,Wa
Matzke Fine Art Gallery, Camano Island, Wa
CoCA 24 hour Art Marathon, Seattle, Wa
Whatcom Museum, Art Benefit, Bellingham, Wa
Museum of Northwest Art, Annual Art Auction, Laconner,Wa
SAM Gallery, Seattle, WA
2011
Museum of Northwest Art, “Wild/Life”, Laconner, Wa
“Flora & Fauna” Smith&Vallee Gallery, Edison, Wa
SAM Gallery, Seattle, WA
Matzke Fine Art Gallery, Camano Island, Wa
Museum of Northwest Art, Annual Art Auction, Laconner,Wa
Whatcom Museum, Art Benefit, Bellingham, Wa
Artist Trust Art Auction, Seattle, Wa
CoCA 24 hour Art Marathon, Seattle, Wa
2010
Museum of Northwest Art, Annual Art Auction, Laconner,Wa
Anchor Art Space, Anacortes, Wa
“Motion”, University House Issaquah, Wa
“Wild life”, Cygnus Gallery, Laconner,Wa
SAM Gallery, Seattle, WA
Anacortes Arts Festival, Juried Show
CoCA 24 hour Art Marathon, Seattle, Wa
Whatcom Museum, Art Benefit, Bellingham, Wa
2009
SAM Gallery, Seattle, WA
Poncho Art Auction, Seattle, Wa
Artist Trust Art Auction, Seattle, Wa
AWARDS AND HONORARIUMS:
The CVG Show, second place in painting, juried by Kathleen Moles, 2012
Merit Award for Excellence. PONCHO Invitatioal Fine Art Auction, 2009
Whatcom Museum of Art, “Scraping the Surface” Honorarium, 2007
Columbus Museum of Art –“Best of Show “ Spring Juried Show, Juried by David Reed, 2000
COLLECTIONS:
Kaiser Westside Medical Center, Portland
Skagit Valley College, Mt. Vernon
Museum of Northwest Art
Swedish Hospital, Issaquah
St. Joseph’s Cancer Center, Bellingham
City of Berlin Public Water Works
Mount Vernon Hospice
Todd Horton lives and paints full time on Samish Island, Washington. His work involves landscape and wildlife with elements of chance that play between realism and abstraction.
His work was recently featured in Seattles' Davidson Gallery "Exceptional" show and awarded a "Merit of Excellence" from a PONCHO Art Auction. Horton's paintings were also featured at the Museum of Northwest Art group exhibition "Wild/Life" and in a solo exhibition at Whatcom Museum in 2007 titled "Love, Murder, Magic".
His paintings have been largely influenced from time living abroad in Berlin and Japan. Horton's process of creating/destroying merge to create a magical poetical realism that is once enigmatic and literal, opening the possibility of symbolic meanings. Yet the paintings are most importantly inviting and "beautiful", making us more sensitive to the world around us.
Artist Statement
A painting needs to reflect mystery, and if possible amplify it.
I want to end up with a painting that I haven't entirely planned. This method of chance, inspiration, and destruction may produce a specific type of picture, but it never produces a totally predetermined one. And in allowing an unplanned outcome, I hope to achieve the same coherence and objectivity that a random slice of nature always possesses.
What counts is the seeing. Anything can be painted. It's more difficult to see whether what one is doing is any good or not. What's important is not being able to do a something; it's seeing what it is. Seeing is the decisive act, and ultimately it places the maker and the viewer on the same level.
All my different paintings have one consistent foundation: me-my attitude and my intention which may be expressed in different ways but never essentially changes. The variety is superficial. One wears different clothes for different occasions; that has nothing to do with style.
Has painting reached its limit, everything done before? As long as people enjoy making paintings it can't die. It's perhaps fundamental to our being, for 40,000 years we have been making paintings. What other profession even comes close to that? Repetition is only boring when a painter's works are boring. Good art can't be made often enough.
......and what is art and how is it recognized? Like the sound of moonlight dripping through pines...
Resume
SOLO EXHIBITIONS:
2015 “Twilight of the Wyrd Wood” Cygnus Gallery, La Conner
2013 “New Paintings” Smith&Vallee Gallery, Edison, Wa
2012 “Between Seeing and Knowing” Smith&Vallee Gallery, Edison, Wa
2011 “From here to the Horizon” Smith&Vallee Gallery, Edison, Wa
2010 “Minor Keys” Smith&Vallee Gallery, Edison, Wa
2009 “Future Tense” Smith&Vallee Gallery, Edison, Wa
2008 “Present Tense” Smith&Vallee Gallery, Edison, Wa
2007 “Love, Murder, Magic” Whatcom Museum of Art, Bellingham,Wa
2006 “Salmon Series” Gulf of Georgia Cannery Historic site of Canada
2002 “Salmon Run” Bohin und Zue Gallery, Berlin, Germany
GROUP EXHIBITIONS:
2015
“War of the Foxes, Artists Respond” COCA, Seattle, Wa
Museum of Northwest Art: “Neo-Naturalists”
Cygnus Gallery, La Conner,Wa
Visions West Gallery, Bozeman, MT
SAM Gallery, Seattle, Wa
Matzke Fine Art Gallery, Camano Island, Wa
2014
Visions West Gallery, Bozeman, MT
SAM Gallery, Seattle, Wa
Matzke Fine Art Gallery, Camano Island, Wa
Simon Mace Gallery, Port Townsend, Wa
Cygnus Gallery, La Conner,Wa
2013
Simon Mace Gallery, Port Townsend, Wa
SAM Gallery, Seattle, Wa
Matzke Fine Art Gallery, Camano Island, Wa
Smith&Vallee Gallery, Edison, Wa
2012
“Exceptional”, Davidson Gallery, Seattle
“Dead and Alive”, CoCA, Seattle,
Arts Alive Invitatioal, La Conner,Wa
Matzke Fine Art Gallery, Camano Island, Wa
CoCA 24 hour Art Marathon, Seattle, Wa
Whatcom Museum, Art Benefit, Bellingham, Wa
Museum of Northwest Art, Annual Art Auction, Laconner,Wa
SAM Gallery, Seattle, WA
2011
Museum of Northwest Art, “Wild/Life”, Laconner, Wa
“Flora & Fauna” Smith&Vallee Gallery, Edison, Wa
SAM Gallery, Seattle, WA
Matzke Fine Art Gallery, Camano Island, Wa
Museum of Northwest Art, Annual Art Auction, Laconner,Wa
Whatcom Museum, Art Benefit, Bellingham, Wa
Artist Trust Art Auction, Seattle, Wa
CoCA 24 hour Art Marathon, Seattle, Wa
2010
Museum of Northwest Art, Annual Art Auction, Laconner,Wa
Anchor Art Space, Anacortes, Wa
“Motion”, University House Issaquah, Wa
“Wild life”, Cygnus Gallery, Laconner,Wa
SAM Gallery, Seattle, WA
Anacortes Arts Festival, Juried Show
CoCA 24 hour Art Marathon, Seattle, Wa
Whatcom Museum, Art Benefit, Bellingham, Wa
2009
SAM Gallery, Seattle, WA
Poncho Art Auction, Seattle, Wa
Artist Trust Art Auction, Seattle, Wa
AWARDS AND HONORARIUMS:
The CVG Show, second place in painting, juried by Kathleen Moles, 2012
Merit Award for Excellence. PONCHO Invitatioal Fine Art Auction, 2009
Whatcom Museum of Art, “Scraping the Surface” Honorarium, 2007
Columbus Museum of Art –“Best of Show “ Spring Juried Show, Juried by David Reed, 2000
COLLECTIONS:
Kaiser Westside Medical Center, Portland
Skagit Valley College, Mt. Vernon
Museum of Northwest Art
Swedish Hospital, Issaquah
St. Joseph’s Cancer Center, Bellingham
City of Berlin Public Water Works
Mount Vernon Hospice