Margaret Timbrell

Artist Statement

Margaret Timbrell is an artist based in San Francisco. She studied with Lisa Yuskavage at New York University, where she earned her degree in Studio Art, and was a fine arts student at Speos, Academie des Beaux Arts, and Jussieu Paris 7. In her final year at NYU, Timbrell developed a love and appreciation for conceptual art and the corps exquis with her mentor, author Lawrence Chua.

Timbrell travels back and forth between mediums. Until recently, she worked exclusively in photography, focusing on the photograph as installation. But after a terrible accident in January, 2007, in which she was run over by a truck, Timbrell picked up an easel and rediscovered painting.

Timbrell's paintings are abstract studies of intense colors, seen from up close. She begins her work by selecting colors that clash. With time, as she immerses herself in the painting process, she brings the extreme colors into a restless dialogue. Her photographs, on the other hand, focus on the intimacy of space: the startling proximity of a bedroom wall, the span of floor beneath her bed, or images that have been made abstract through intentional color misprinting.

Though building off of classic compositional structure, Timbrell’s paintings and photographs are distinguished by a fascination with the surface textures of her everyday environment.