ENDS AND ODDS AND FLEETING MOMENTS: Mary Norden / Marie-Thérèse Ross

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MARY NORDEN / MARIE THERESE ROSS

ENDS AND ODDS AND FLEETING MOMENTS

The ends and odds in the title of this exhibition referto materials - scraps and fragments that have fallen into disuse, remnants of a past life, abandoned as something new takes their place. It speaks to impermanence, transience, and transformation, but not in a sense of renewal. Rather, it reflects the fleeting nature of time, where the discarded is acknowledged, but not reclaimed.

Robert Rauschenberg is well known for his Combines, artworks that incorporated everyday objects as art materials, blurring the distinctions between painting and sculpture.* This exhibition brings together two artists - Mary Norden, a painter, and Marie-Thérèse Ross, a sculptor, who both use found materials to explore similar themes of impermanence and transformation.

Mary Norden studied textiles at art school and began her creative journey by establishing a successful design studio producing fabric collections. However, six years ago, she chose to step away from that commercial world to dedicate herself fully to fine art, a decision that allowed her to channel her poetic sensibility into her work. At the heart of her practice lies the repurposing of vintage rags and fabric scraps—materials once discarded, yet imbued with the silent histories of their past lives. These fragments, marked by wear and fading, are not about preserving decay or restoring what was lost. Instead, they serve as raw ingredients for a transformative process in which Norden reshapes them into evocative and entirely new compositions.

Her approach defies traditional expectations of textiles, where the material often dictates the outcome. Instead, Norden pushes beyond their original forms, meticulously layering and arranging strips of cloth to create paintings that suggest distant vistas or ephemeral moments. These pieces, with their muted tones and delicate textures, are imbued with a quiet subtlety that rewards prolonged observation. What appears simple at first glance reveals a profound depth - an interplay of light, shadow, and texture that unfolds gradually, offering the viewer an intimate and contemplative experience.

Much like Rothko’s colour fields, which convey emotional resonance beneath their calm, minimalist surfaces, Norden’s work captures moments suspended in time. Her transformed materials evoke memories, sensations, or fleeting impressions, inviting the viewer to connect with the intangible. Through her poetic sensibility, Norden transcends the physicality of her chosen medium, crafting works that speak to the delicate balance between what is seen and what is felt, between the tangible and the ephemeral.

From beneath the calm surface bursts frenetic life, surging from the depths of the water into the air, shrieking above the landscape, disturbing the peace - a genesis. Marie-Thérèse Ross makes sculptures from found scraps of laminated wood and cutoffs. Her sculptures can be mobiles, wall pieces or free-standing.The poetics of her mind are well suited to Samuel Beckett’s Ends and Odds, the title borrowed from his volume of jettisoned and later salvaged plays and sketches, (Faber 1977). Ross is fascinated by transformation and the hidden workings of the subconscious. Her work is imbued with dark humour, often playful, yet tinged with pathos.

Ross’s figures are like players in a theatre of personal mythology. Abstract yet recognisable, they are articulated and fragile, full of energy but held in an almost suspended stillness. Their exaggerated proportions and strange postures, combined with the tension between fragility and strength, create a surreal, unsettling presence. These sculptures do not tell stories but invite the viewer to perceive them through their own lens - each figure embodying its own riddle, its own character, full of strange vitality.

Drawing on literature in her titles and references, Ross’s creatures speak not of specific mythologies, but of universal themes - fragility, defiance, and transformation. Their forms, often skeletal and articulated, are caught in a constant state of tension, their energy felt in every gesture, every curve.

The poetics of Ross’s mind brings tenderness to her sculptures, akin to the puppets of Paul Klee - figures that speak to a deeper, more intimate expression of self. They are complex, layered works, defined not only by what they are but by what they suggest, leaving the viewer to uncover their meanings, both humorous and profound.

*Wikipedia

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

MARY NORDEN

Mary Norden is a London-based artist known for her evocative works crafted from fragments of vintage textiles. Since 2019, she has focused on creating abstract and still-life compositions that explore narratives woven into aged fabrics. Her recent exhibitions include Torn (2024), a two-person show with Anna van Oosterom at Vivienne Roberts Projects in London. 

Norden's landscape pictures are inspired by the seasons. During walks, she contemplates scale and form, finding poetic clarity in these fleeting moments. Each artwork begins with a "seed fabric," whose history unfolds into layered, story-rich compositions that capture stillness and quiet beauty.

Earlier in her career, after studying textiles at West Surrey College of Art, Norden built a celebrated design studio, creating collections for Yves Saint Laurent, Ralph Lauren, Manuel Canovas, and others, and later worked as a stylist, art director and author of 11 books on interiors and textiles.

MARIE THERESE ROSS

Born in London to Austrian and French parents, Marie-Thérèse Ross is a member of the Royal Society of Sculptors. She is an Art Gemini Prize winner (2021).

Ross’s work continues to explore the themes of transformation and self-expression, finding meaning in the discarded, reimagining it to give voice to the layers of the unconscious. Ross seeks to both reveal and hide awkward personal experiences, episodes that reflect on her own sense of vulnerability and mortality. She creates installations that focus on domestic interiors with anthropomorphic furniture and trapped giant black birds.  By focusing on the personal interior versus the outside world, Ross grapples with themes and ideas that include feminism, mortality, the body, and the human condition. 

Ross was awarded a First-Class BA hons in painting from Loughborough College of Art and Design. She went onto to study sculpture in Germany for a year at Karlsruhe Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste with the British sculptor Michael Sandle RA. She studied sculpture for her MA at the University of Pennsylvania in the USA.