A Sense of Someone: Anne Magill

Anne’s work as an artist has grown out of this deep empathy with the lives of people and her ability to share that tenderness through her paintings. The completeness of Magill’s finished paintings might suggest that each subject was fixed in her mind from the outset and then committed to canvas, but every painting evolves differently, imposing its own demands and directions, over months and, occasionally years, until something convincing begins to emerge and Anne sees the end in sight. Its resolution is that moment when Anne can harness the world she has created within the painting, to the imagined lives of the subjects she depicts. She remains a neutral observer, watching on unseen, unnoticed, but always thinking how an image can elicit meaning. When all these forces coalesce, and the painting provokes its own set of questions, then it is finished.

John Martin, 2019