Bird Ghost - 2007
122 cm x 153 cm
acrylic on canvas
Image: courtesy of artist
Buried Scarlet - 2009
26 cm x 31 cm
acrylic on canvas
Image: courtesy of artist
It's official. It seems I have been living under a rock - otherwise, how else is it possible for me to have missed the wonderful, luminous works of the London painter Mali Morris. Really, these are so breath taking. Look at them; simple, clean colours that sing, generous brush work, fresh surfaces that are deep enough to dive into, yet never overworked - these are the works of a longstanding gifted and intelligent painter; they provoke a conversation between the viewer and the paint.
Predominately working small with acrylic on canvas, Mali Morris' process might resemble that of an excavator - starting with the application of rectangles of colours, overlaying these with lush broad strokes of colour glazes and then wiping away parts to reveal what lies beneath. With her process Mali Morris seeks to find rather than add colour. It's a delight to see a painter who can balance bright geometric forms with gestural abstraction and be able to pull the two formal elements together with such ease. I'm so enthralled that I've immediately ordered the latest issue of Turps Banana which features an essay about Mali's work by Peter Suchin. (There's also an interview with Thomas Nozkowski!)
Mali Morris is a painter who makes you think about paint, and whose paint asks you to think about light. She is not concerned with making paintings represent recognisable objects, but the world, through light effects, is in her paintings... Her paintings are alive not just to a history of abstraction, but in a dialogue with her own method of experimentation. The issues seem to be light and rhythm, and what painting is - From the catalogue essay ‘Strange Links: Giude to Morris'2008, by Matthew Collings, artist, writer, critic & broadcaster; author of This is Civilisation 2008 Read more here
I could not have put it better myself.
