(“Storm” -
Watercolour on Paper by Jennifer Morrison)
Durban-born artist Jennifer Morrison invites art lovers to take a deeper
look at her new Johannesburg exhibition.
Is a painting ever really just a painting? Is the result of a beautiful
surface an end goal in itself, or is it the expression of a myriad of forces,
bubbling just beneath the surface?
Surface Depth, the newest
exhibition on South African shores by this UK-based artist, invites viewers to
consider the dynamic contextual and emotional forces at work in the artistic
process, in her upcoming exhibition at Graham’s Modern & Contemporary in
Johannesburg beginning of 2019.
“There are forces at play in this series of paintings”, says Morrison,
“elemental forces which lie both within and without. A line of a branch speaks
of struggles within me. A gnarled root, a tangled vine, the palest mist, can
sum up what it is to be alive. Alive alongside death – another eternal
juxtaposition. Decay and rejuvenation, pain and joy, claustrophobia and open
space: all of this is trying to find expression on my canvas.”
(Jennifer Morrison)
Morrison was born in South Africa in 1971. It is here that she began her
artistic pursuits, later continuing in London after graduating from Central
Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design. She has exhibited in group shows in
London and New York, and her works are in private collections in USA, London,
Singapore, South Africa, and beyond.
Although she has lived in London for over two decades, the colours and
vibrancy of South Africa remain evident in Morrison’s work. Large canvases are
used to explore the delicate balance between the unconscious and the
deliberate, the precise mark and the accident, the paint’s ability to offer
communication and meaning, while evading precision and definition at the same
time. It is this ambiguity that fascinates Graham Britz, owner and curator at
Graham’s Modern & Contemporary in Johannesburg.
“This will be the third time we are exhibiting with Jennifer, who is
quickly gaining recognition with local and international collectors alike”,
says Britz. “Her work deals predominantly with colour and shape, movement and
rhythm, and in this latest exhibition, she invites us to consider the contexts,
processes and influences under the surface of her fascinating canvasses, rather
than merely the final, finished surface.
Surface Depth opens on January 24
at 19h00 at Graham’s Modern & Contemporary, Bryanston in Johannesburg, and
will run until February 26, 2019. For more information, contact the gallery on 011
463 7869 or info@grahamsgallery.co.za
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