PBS: Art by Northwest
“Todd Horton’s drawing devices reveal the dreams of trees”
by Brangien Davis / August 12, 2024
“Todd Horton is an inheritor of the Skagit artist-adventurer-poetic-mystic tradition that is so tied to this land and waters. He lives on a boat on the Samish River near Edison and paints in a style he calls “Skagit Gothic” – dark, smart, nuanced; informed by those who came before, yet covering entirely new ground in his constant explorations of the moods of this valley.”
-Kathleen Moles
Curator of Exhibitions, Museum of Northwest Art.
Todd Horton and Aaron Loveitt are neighbors along Blanchard Creek in Bow. Exhibiting together at Perry and Carlson Gallery in Mount Vernon, “Vanishing Relics” constructs a duet in paint and sculpture, each work employing historic materials.
Horton grew up in a “farming village” in Ohio. After studying history and
political science at Ohio University, he taught English for a year in Japan, where, under the influence of its art, he began to paint on his own. Soon after, handwriting and illustrating children’s books in South Korea. Then followed some years in Germany where he showed his work in several exhibitions.
Horton now lives on a houseboat near Edison and works in a studio in Blanchard. A past year of residence in the late Clayton James’studio cemented his reputation as an inheritor of the Skagit mystic artists.
At Perry and Carlson he offers portraits of wildlife drawn on found elements, each with a colorful provenance. “The ghost of a new forest” is a dreamy portrait of a lynx drawn with oil stick on secondhand army tent canvas. On century-old salvaged cedar shingles he has drawn images of a bison and a crow.
Works on wood panels that Horton inherited from the studio of Clayton James include “last refuge of the starry sky as the night expands”—a memorable image of a bison vanishing beneath phases of a waning moon. Also on a “relic” James panel is the evocative “sparkling dream of water.”
Horton transformed a fascinating found object into museum-quality art, framing a rusted steel fence that had been flattened by traffic into the semblance of a mountain range—“how the west was lost and pushed the sky away.” Dripping tar mimics a reflection.
-Stephen Hunter, Cascadia Weekly. 2019
“In the central gallery, visitors will find that the mantle of “Northwest mystic” painter has fallen upon Todd Horton’s shoulders. He enjoyed a year-long residency in Clayton James’ studio, and recalls his first impression of it as “shockingly minimal for being used as for 60 years…like a Zen lumberjack and devotee of wabi sabi [had been] living in the space.”
Under James’ aura, Horton imbibed the deep spirit of the Skagit. An intimate essay on his experience is available to read. And his new landscape paintings exhibit strength and majesty. “On the Shores of the Salish” appears to be an encomium to James in its resemblance to the iconic painter’s “Geologic Menhirs” (1997), while displaying the characteristic color modulation of Horton’s best work.”
-Stephen Hunter, Cascadia Weekly. 2017
“Todd Horton’s drawing devices reveal the dreams of trees”
by Brangien Davis / August 12, 2024
“Todd Horton is an inheritor of the Skagit artist-adventurer-poetic-mystic tradition that is so tied to this land and waters. He lives on a boat on the Samish River near Edison and paints in a style he calls “Skagit Gothic” – dark, smart, nuanced; informed by those who came before, yet covering entirely new ground in his constant explorations of the moods of this valley.”
-Kathleen Moles
Curator of Exhibitions, Museum of Northwest Art.
Todd Horton and Aaron Loveitt are neighbors along Blanchard Creek in Bow. Exhibiting together at Perry and Carlson Gallery in Mount Vernon, “Vanishing Relics” constructs a duet in paint and sculpture, each work employing historic materials.
Horton grew up in a “farming village” in Ohio. After studying history and
political science at Ohio University, he taught English for a year in Japan, where, under the influence of its art, he began to paint on his own. Soon after, handwriting and illustrating children’s books in South Korea. Then followed some years in Germany where he showed his work in several exhibitions.
Horton now lives on a houseboat near Edison and works in a studio in Blanchard. A past year of residence in the late Clayton James’studio cemented his reputation as an inheritor of the Skagit mystic artists.
At Perry and Carlson he offers portraits of wildlife drawn on found elements, each with a colorful provenance. “The ghost of a new forest” is a dreamy portrait of a lynx drawn with oil stick on secondhand army tent canvas. On century-old salvaged cedar shingles he has drawn images of a bison and a crow.
Works on wood panels that Horton inherited from the studio of Clayton James include “last refuge of the starry sky as the night expands”—a memorable image of a bison vanishing beneath phases of a waning moon. Also on a “relic” James panel is the evocative “sparkling dream of water.”
Horton transformed a fascinating found object into museum-quality art, framing a rusted steel fence that had been flattened by traffic into the semblance of a mountain range—“how the west was lost and pushed the sky away.” Dripping tar mimics a reflection.
-Stephen Hunter, Cascadia Weekly. 2019
“In the central gallery, visitors will find that the mantle of “Northwest mystic” painter has fallen upon Todd Horton’s shoulders. He enjoyed a year-long residency in Clayton James’ studio, and recalls his first impression of it as “shockingly minimal for being used as for 60 years…like a Zen lumberjack and devotee of wabi sabi [had been] living in the space.”
Under James’ aura, Horton imbibed the deep spirit of the Skagit. An intimate essay on his experience is available to read. And his new landscape paintings exhibit strength and majesty. “On the Shores of the Salish” appears to be an encomium to James in its resemblance to the iconic painter’s “Geologic Menhirs” (1997), while displaying the characteristic color modulation of Horton’s best work.”
-Stephen Hunter, Cascadia Weekly. 2017