Philosophy as Art & Practice

I am a writer and artist based in Surrey and London. My sculptures have exhibited at the Mall Galleries (Equestrian Sculpture, 2010) and oil paintings in Notting Hill’s (Blenheim Gallery, 1990). My paintings also appeared in ARTisSpectrum (Agora Gallery, NY) and in 2001 I led a philanthropic art project (Children in Crisis) in the remotest nomad region of the Tibetan Plateau. The sculptures, paintings, and photograph by the nomad children exhibited in London’s Spitalfields Gallery and The Café Royal in 2002. My artwork is owned by collectors in New York, UK, and France.
 
I was a finalist in the International Equestrian Art&Cavallo Competition, exhibiting ‘Spirit of the Herd’ (5 artworks) in Verona, Italy in November 2021 and received The Jury’s Special Commendation for Sculpture. My work was part of Thrown Winter Exhibition 2021/22 and 73rd Chelsea Art Society, 2022. Pre-selected for the Green & Stone Exhibition, July 2022.
 
Having charted careers in equestrianism, television, and investment banking technology, raised a family and I now dedicate my life to my art practice as sculpture and philosophy. I have brought innovation and original methodologies to every stage of my life and specialise in Buddhist Zen and Vajrayana meditation practices and vivid dreamwork research.  

I am seeking gallery representation and space to exhibit this collection in 2022/23.

'At the core of my motivation is the ‘S’ shaped human spine that enables our bi-pedal uprightness not granted to apes. This is due to a small but significant difference in the neck and lower back region of the spine of humans. I relate this ‘s’ shape to the Buddhist and Vedic ‘s’ shaped energy flow known as tantra and kundalini spiral energy that energises and enhances elevation, and potentially levitation. Throughout my practice I strive to merge and dance, with the clay and pen, not to lose myself per se, but to modulate and render the ‘S’ pulse in 3D. This ‘S’ relates to Lyotard’s ‘libidinal pulse’, making my sculpture practice acts of performative emergence – and as a non-binary and non-dialectic methodology.

Over 20-years my experimental meditation and breath induced vivid dreaming methodologies have produced immersive states that stem and cadence the ‘S’ pulse, producing non-harmful tangible elevation and expansion of the corporeal form.

My long-term aim is to relate art and art practice as catalysts in activating elevation in humans, both individually and collectively. I believe that gaining understanding of corporeal, sentient and material 3D elevation aligns with current emergence and entanglement research and offers an anciently informed new methodology to situate art as an agentic component of human consciousness. I have dedicated the past 20 years to preparing for this, laying down and interweaving three threads, pulling them as one through the needle's eye.'  Margot Wilson

Margot Wilson:
Artist & Writer
RCA MA Writing
MPhil Philosophy
RCA GradDip Fine Art (Student)

RCA Graduate Show 2022 (Online)
https://2022.rca.ac.uk/students/margot-wilson

my rca webpage

Contact Margot Wilson

margot wilson

towards levitation

Development as an Artist
As a child I studied the Renaissance Masters and taught myself to draw using mirrors and inverted images. My early formal training in the 80’s and 90’s includes the tutelage of head sculptor at Madame Tussauds and figurative wax and bronze sculpture courses in London. In 2000 I experimented with bi-handed drawing and rapid clay and wax sketching, the method I use today, preferring the immediacy of improvised dramatic form to finely modelled finishes. My present work is primarily in porcelain and experimentation with glazes and smoke firing. My influences remain Picasso’s early animal studies and ceramics, the delicate rhythmic forms of Donatello, Hepworth’s universal minimalism, and throwing wise, the legendary Lucie Rie.
 
I work from my home studio.
 
Exhibitions
My sculptures have exhibited at the Mall Galleries (Equestrian Sculpture, 2010) and oil paintings in Notting Hill’s (Blenheim Gallery, 1990). My paintings also appeared in ARTisSpectrum (Agora Gallery, NY) and in 2001 I led a philanthropic art project (Children in Crisis) in the remotest nomad region of the Tibetan Plateau. The sculptures, paintings, and photograph by the nomad children exhibited in London’s Spitalfields Gallery and The Café Royal in 2002. My artwork is owned by collectors in New York, UK, and France.

I am a runner up in International Equestrian Art&Cavallo Competition, exhibiting ‘Spirit of the Herd’ (5 artworks) in Verona, Italy in November 2021. Also, an exhibitor in Thrown Contemporary Winter Exhibition 2021/2.

My work also exhibited in the 73rd Chelsea Art Society, 2022 and is pre-selected for the Green & Stone Exhibition, July 2022.

My portfolio includes figurative and abstract ceramic and bronze sculptures and vessels that experiment with elevation through stretching and suspending soaked porcelain. In contrast, I also examine erosion and thresholds of collapse of clay, exposing unfired pieces to the weather and elements over long periods of time. This research takes this conceit further, examining the ‘libidinal pulse’  as ‘embodied sculpture’ (S-tantric directed emergence) and ‘earth sculpture’ (geo-emergence) created straight from the ground. Earth sculpture here borrows from Land Art but diverges in three distinct ways. First the works only use earth-bound local site materials. Second, I’m searching for ‘S-marks’ of ‘Earth pulse’ in the limb-obtrusion-sculpture as ‘events’ of libidinal extension. Third, once created a mould will be made and a cast(s) created. I am interested in exploring non-metal or plastic materials including alabaster, clay slips, salts, coffee grounds, low fired ‘out of date’ foods, seaweed, wood pulps, and hair. Eventually the borrowed form (subjected to gravity and the elements and erosion) will be reclaimed by Earth, providing the opportunity to observe and explore a receding libidinal pulse. In other words, is there an observable ‘S’ connection between Lyotard’s ‘great ephemeral skin’ (Lyotard, 1993), the slowing, ageing, withering, shirking folds of the ageing dying skin, curling spine, and decaying sculptures?
 
Having carried a life-long obsession with the elevation aesthetic and generosity of horses, they invariably appear as central characters in my artwork and metaphors. The motion of the horse in the air epitomises my vision of ‘libidinal pulse’ and offers an example of Lyotard’s ‘perfumed mane of hair’. Though a quadruped, the horse’s horizontal spine also operates as an ‘S’.

From Erosions to Elevation

Studio Work - Outside and In (2020)

Images #4: Metamorphoses I (2020)

Comet I (2020) Work in Progress

Thank you for looking at my work. Please contact me if you would like to discuss commissioning or acquiring any finished pieces or to ask questions about my methods and practice philosophy.

Photograph: Tintype by James Merrell (2021)