Rebecca Horne, Mnemosyne Atlas, Panel 48, Fortuna, 2024 – 2025

Rebecca Horne walks the line between art history and liberation in her new series, “Clay Feet“.

Rebecca Horne has long experimented with materials and the illusions inherent in photography. However, her new series, “Clay Feet”, is filled with subtle angst as it confronts the enduring grip of patriarchy with raw, personal urgency. Reflecting on experiences in 2024, she says, “What kicked off this project was a series of experiences that made me realize the patriarchy is never really done with women. These experiences are woven into the work, along with new feelings of independence that have given me the freedom to experiment. It’s been a heady combination of anger, joy, and discovery.”

Through a sensory-rich exploration, Horne questions what remains unchanged regarding women’s roles in art history and society, “I decided I didn’t want to sublimate all my emotions in the work. I needed tools for more direct expression, connecting with the role of women in art history. This summer, I found the unfinished work of art historian Aby Warburg, the Mnemosyne Atlas, and layered my photographs directly into it, covering up and responding to the images placed by Warburg. It feels like stepping into art history, and sometimes like time traveling.” Horne has created a collage on an Atlas panel featuring the pagan goddess Fortuna. “The theme of self-liberation is evident—and you can definitely see that in my version. Self-liberation resonates in my current phase,” she says.

“Clay Feet” explores the curious interplay of materiality, whether it be the physicality of food, clay, paper, or the body. The work delves into the seemingly ordinary to symbolize the uncanny—sensual and carnal, yet also complex in relation to our history and the experience of being a woman. These materials carry deep significance and emotional weight, while also evoking comical sensations that highlight the complexities of reality.

–Sarah Knobel

Rebecca Horne, Untitled (bananas) from Clay Feet, 2024 – 2025.

Rebecca Horne, Untitled (egg face) , 2024

Clay Feet Project Statement:

Clay Feet is a photography collection exploring contradictory themes: Creating a new self, but also being stuck in place and time, growing and aging. I use raw, unfinished clay as a metaphor for the creation and shaping of a new self; it’s the material from which statues are formed. Covered in clay, I pose as Gaia, the devouring, destructive female—who casually eats the leg of her captor. The clay self asks: What is the weight of history? Can I bend the arc of art history to channel my power, my rage? Who and what have I created of my flesh?

Clay is cold, dense, sticky, and slow. It is hard to manipulate. It must be warmed by the body, moistened with water. Paper is fast, loose, and clean. Food is a conduit for pleasure, comfort, and sustenance. It can also be an expression of control, and of appetite. Data is information and values taken for granted, systemization. Data tries and fails to quantify emotion, consumption, sex, art, and history. Each material choice is embedded with a deeper conceptual meaning.

Rebecca Horne, Little Man, Clay Feet, 2024

Rebecca Horne, Untitled (cardboard), 2024

I fell in love with Aby Warburg’s Mnemosyne Atlas—the visionary work of the German historian—at first sight. It connected directly with my work: the intuitive collections of images, the re-appraising of art history. Warburg worked intuitively with images, creating a collection charting interconnections across time.—an artwork in itself. The fact that it was left unfinished also made me feel that it belonged to me. My project Clay Feet quotes from history, with a new category of images sprung from the traces and vibrations of the Atlas.

Rebecca Horne, Clay Feet, 2024

Rebecca Horne, Baloney Chart, 2024

I’ve replaced some images in the Atlas with my photographs and other historical images to create new connections. Through this intervention, I stepped directly into the flow of the history of images, connecting with Warburg’s idea of collective memory while also claiming my territory as a female artist among male ancestors. In order to open up new space for reimagining, my role has become that of a disrupter and a participant in the unfolding dialogue of art history.

Rebecca Horne, David, 2024