MERLIN JAMES AND VICTORIA MORTON

James and Morton are each known for an evolved, searching and idiosyncratic investigation of painting. Though distinct in style and subject matter, there is much they share, partly through a deep engagement with the history of their medium. Presented in combination their works promise a mutually enriching and illuminating push/pull, between figuration and abstraction, surface and depth, flow and resistance, dynamism and stillness, translucency and opacity: a double shuffle.

Victoria Morton’s paintings teeter on the verges of abstraction and figuration, enveloping us in a sensuous universe of colour, shape and vibrational energy. Shapeshifting forms seem to shimmer and radiate, informed by musical and biological structures, and marked by a sense of openness and mutability. “Paintings are not just a flat thing to look at; they can be felt like clothes you put on or a room you sit in,” the artist states in a forthcoming interview for BOMB Magazine (Summer 2023). Double Shuffle marks the first time Morton’s work has been presented in Dublin. The artist will produce a new limited edition print especially for the exhibition.

Recently described by e-flux as “notorious for the confounding heterogeneity of his output”, Merlin James refines and renews many of painting’s most time-honoured concerns – genre and narrative, pictorial space and expressive gesture, the emotive resonance of colour and texture. Double Shuffle features a spectrum of works, including figures, seascapes, buildings, vistas, monochromes, and ‘frame’ paintings – modes that the artist has revisited and revised throughout his career. A substantial new publication, surveying 40 years of James’s work, will be launched as part of the exhibition.