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

MARY NORDEN 

MARIE-THERESE ROSS 

ENDS AND ODDS AND FLEETING MOMENTS

The ends and odds in the title of this exhibition refer to 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 textile 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. Early in her career, she established a successful design studio producing fabric collections. However, six years ago, she left that world behind to focus solely on fine art, allowing her to give full expression to her poetic sensibility. Norden’s work revolves around the repurposing of vintage rags and fabric scraps - materials that have outlived their original function and been cast aside. These fragments, though worn and faded, are not about decay or restoration; they are the building blocks of something entirely new. Rather than allowing the materials to dictate the image, Norden transforms them into something beyond their original form, often creating paintings where the cloth is applied in strips to evoke distant views or fleeting moments. The beauty of her work lies in its quiet subtlety, inviting the viewer to contemplate what is not immediately visible. At first glance, the pieces may seem simple, but the muted colours and delicate textures reveal layers of meaning that unfold upon closer inspection. Much like Rothko’s colour fields, which convey complex emotions beneath their calm surfaces, Norden’s cloth pieces invite a deeper, meditative engagement—moments suspended in time, captured through the artist’s transformation of the material into something intangible, a memory or sensation.

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 cut-offs. 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