The Art of Victoria Horkan

There comes a tipping point in the life of every successful artist where they stop being a work in progress

There comes a tipping point in the life of every successful artist where they stop being a work in progress - or a timid art student - and grow into a full form. Where their potential is realized and the artistic community begins to recognize them as being above their contemporaries. For Victoria Horkan this point has arrived, with backing from major London auction house Sotheby’s, home to some of the biggest sales of the century.

The work of Victoria Horkan is at once familiar and fiercely contemporary. Abstract shapes and brooding colors blend to create works which depict the emotion and the substance of the modern world. Building, but never relying, on the works of Miro, Pollock and Rothko, she creates the kind of art that you could live alongside. Her pieces breathe with a light and life missing from so many of her contemporaries, with the most complex feelings depicted through the smallest details. She has already been showcased on the BBC 1 website, exhibited in London, Edinburgh, Belfast and Leeds, and has had work sold worldwide.

Her inspiration comes from the modern structures - buildings and graphic design - she sees around her, especially the clean-cut line of proudly contemporary work. She filters ideas, trying to live with them for a number of days before heading back to the studio.  This process helps Victoria distill the emotive quality of the object, rather than merely reproduce its physical form, which in turn allows her to develop the ideas and create paintings that are incredibly human. She is connected to the developments around her and gains fresh ideas from the artwork produced by young, new artists she sees displayed in galleries all over the country.

---

Victoria has been painting for as long as she can remember. She recently finished her MA at the University of Huddersfield and now devotes all of her time to her art. Throughout her brief career she has experimented with palettes and the expression of movement to great effect. She has reduced form its most simple, clean and uncluttered shape, creating the perfect portal for the expression of pure emotion. Her style develops from one painting to the next; her newest work is her most accomplished, boding well for a successful future.

Horkan paints in a time of unparalleled change in people’s consumption of art. Traditional ideas of the "white cube" gallery space are being challenged by a new generation of artists exhibiting on the new frontiers: on the Internet, in open spaces, and through different forms. Art is no longer so tightly controlled by dealers, most of whom lost out in the financial crash, or restricted by overzealous gallery owners. In the past Victoria has turned her home into a gallery, inviting the art public to visit her and look at her work in her flat. It is this friendly, approachable style that has won her a great number of friends and patrons within the artistic community.

There has been a truly positive vibe about her work for a while now, but it has not been all plain sailing. Finding the right gallery can make or break an artist, especially during the biggest global downturn in a generation. Horkan says confidence is the answer; if you do not believe 100% in your collection you are doomed. The positivity about her work has given her this belief and now she is confident of future exhibitions and sales through Sotheby’s and her website.

Through this website and through the galleries which represent her, Horkan reaches an audience of individuals and commercial art buyers alike. Collections provide anew the challenge of producing multiple pieces on a theme. The bonus is the ability to see the work hanging together, rather than split up and sold individually. Commissioning directly to the collector provides another challenge as the client will have many demands about the art they want. Finding the right relationship, where both artist and client and truly happy, is the key.

Being a full-time artist means living on the confidence that your work will sell. Many promising young designers and artists fall by the wayside or refuse to take the chance on paying the bills through their creations.

The defining moment for Victoria came when she was approached - and taken on - by a gallery with some quite prodigious artists.  Getting her collection into a gallery, to be seen by many people, was the key to gaining the confidence. It seems that the future is very bright for this up-and-coming artist.

Victoria Horkan is a full-time contemporary artist.

www.victoriahorkan.com

Alan Perkins is a London-based writer and journalist.