VICTORIA MORTON

Victoria Morton’s paintings revolve around themes of nature, desire and loss. The physicality radiating from Morton’s luscious, almost hallucinogenic surfaces is inescapable—from precise applications of paint to bruised, evaporated zones of overlapping colour—her stern examination of material and commitment to process remains unwavering.

Morton’s works are tantalising, the audience is led to believe they are seeing what they think but the visual representation and physical experience is re-evaluated as figures and forms are brought in and out of focus, a combination of growth and desiccation. Within Morton’s deft handling of material, correlations between music and colour become evident as repetition, rhythm and balance are built up through gestural marks, with the paintings themselves creating compositions akin to musical composition.

The paintings shift and dance, like light reflecting in a pot hole of water, and this interaction of colour and form is reminiscent of the fleeting encounters and intense memories of personal narrative, one aspect of the artist’s stimuli; resulting in the viewer being plunged into the rich depths of the work, only to be pulled back out again. Morton’s visual language allows her to convey memory of place and time as it truly is: a nonlinear accumulation of imagery and forms that fragment and morph over time. The paintings are at once a celebration of its limitations and possibilities.

Victoria Morton (b. 1971, Glasgow) lives and works in Glasgow and Fossombrone, Italy. Morton studied at the The Glasgow School of Art, graduating with a BA (Hons) in Painting in 1993, and with an MFA in 1995.

Morton exhibits internationally, recent solo exhibitions include: My Mother Was A Reeler, Etro, London (2016); Sadie Coles HQ, London (2016); The Modern Institute, Aird’s Lane, Glasgow (2014); Mouth Wave, Rat Hole Gallery, Tokyo (2014); Il Capricorno, Venice (2012); Tapestry (RADIO ON), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston (2012); Her Guitars, The Modern Institute, Osborne Street, Glasgow (2011); Inverleith House, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (2010); Sun By Ear with Katy Dove, Tramway, Glasgow (2007); and The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (2002).

Selected group exhibitions include: GENERATION: 25 Years of Contemporary Art in Scotland at Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (2014); Studio 58: Women Artists in Glasgow Since WWII, Mackintosh Museum, Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow (2012); Painting Not Painting at Tate St. Ives, Cornwall (2003), S.M.A.K., Ghent (2001) and Edge of the Real, The Whitechapel Gallery, London (2004).

In October 2017, The Perse School Cambridge installed Morton’s completed tapestry, which was gun tufted over 8 and a half months based on one of her paintings. In 2018 she undertook a short residency at Hospitalfield, Arbroath, which further developed her musical interests as part of her wider practice. Morton is currently working with Hospitalfield on a new textile commission for Hospitalfields’ new accommodation building as part of their Future Plan capital development.