Margaret Neill is an American abstract artist from Ohio, using a variety of mediums to create lyrical, gestural imagery informed by curves and non-representational shapes and forms. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Education
Neill earned her Bachelor of Arts from Hiram College in Hiram, OH, in 1978. She went on to earn her Masters in Fine Art in Painting from Brooklyn College in New York in 1984.
Technique
Neill creates works on canvas, linen and paper using a variety of mediums, including graphite, colored pencil, charcoal and paint. Her process involves an intuitive marking of the surface resulting in continuous, interwound lines and squiggled geometric formations.
The work references many of the qualities of Lyrical Abstraction. Her process is instinctive and non-representational. The work transcends objective interpretation, instead inviting the viewer to participate through the work in an exploration of the artist's relationship with time and space. As gestural interactions with moments in a particular location, Neill's works serve almost as surrogate memories, visceral relics of a moment in space and time.
Inspiration
Neill is inspired by the fluid geometric qualities of curve and line, in particular how the natural qualities of the earth and sky intermingle with urban elements of object and architecture. Partially informed by observable patterns found in both human and natural phenomena such as buildings, maps and weather patterns, the work emerges from an ephemeral, intuitional state, resulting in objects and images that convey a sense of complexity, serenity and flux.
Artist Statement
"In my work I circle through a space that is intellectuctual and physical and relates to both the urban and natural world. In periods of rapid transformation such as how we live today, these works seek a way of being that is quiet, continuous and alive.
My paintings emerge from an engagement with my materials and are concerned neither with narrative or image but rather strive to describe a state of being. Color and form are the subjects of my recent work and they interchange in the discourse and physicality of the painting process. I like to play with ideas of speed, movement, and scale. I seek to explore the transformational properties of merging the physical and metaphysical worlds of time and space.
I have been fascinated with the rapidly rushing landscape we move through while traveling in a car, bus, or train. And the way various modes of transportation let us feel like we are weightless for a time, moving effortlessly through space. Not unlike the way a cormorant or heron can easily move through both air and water. Painting allows me to conjure up an experience that plays with these ideas.|"
Collections
Neill's work is featured in various museums as well as various international and corporate collections, including The Museum of Modern Art Library, Martin Brest, LA and the U.S. State Department.
Exhibitions
Neill has exhibited her paintings and drawings widely in a number of solo and group exhibitions at museums and galleries nationally.
Neill's work has been widely published, and she has been featured on blogs, TV shows, radio programs and extensively written about in the press.
