ANNIE MORRIS

Early Years

Annie Morris was born in 1978. Following a foundation course at Central Saint Martins she completed her BA at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and then studied for her Master’s at the Slade. She was at the École des Beaux-Arts at the same time as Richard Deacon, Annette Messager and Christian Boltanski and her tutor was Guiseppe Penone. She studied painting but became more fascinated by sculpture. In 2012, Morris was pregnant but gave birth to a stillborn child. During the process of grieving, Morris began to create plaster shapes reminiscent of her pregnant body. The repetitive nature of creating the egg-like shapes helped her to grieve and later evolved into her Stack series.

Annie Morris: Artworks

Annie Morris is known for using very bright colours including ochre, viridian and oxblood red. Repetition is also key to her artistic practice: she repeats and refines ideas until they coalesce into a more concentrated form (for example, the “flower woman” who appears in many of her works). Her tapestries appear to be painted or drawn with charcoal but are in fact stitched—her technique recalls pastels and paint but is created in thread, a process that emerged from a series of drawings she made during lockdown. “I wanted to explore how to make sewing look like oil stick,” she has said.

• Flower Woman Ultramarine Blue (2018) is a see-through steel sculpture of her daisy-headed woman motif—she has also made a perspex version mounted on concrete.
• In her 2021 exhibition at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, When a Happy Thing Falls, Morris created an immersive installation of her Stack sculptures, brightly painted irregular plaster spheres that seemingly defy the laws of gravity and physics.
• Her series of oil stick and crayon sketches includes 2020’s Toy Train, produced during the Covid-19 pandemic when Morris took her family out of London to isolate in the English countryside. The drawings were produced rapidly, translating shapes and ideas into gestural art pieces.

Annie Morris: Select Exhibitions

Select Solo Exhibitions

• Annie Morris: Hope From A Thin Line, Fosun Foundation, Shanghai (2024)
• Annie Morris: Permanent Moments, Timothy Taylor, New York City (2023)
• Annie Morris, Oscar Niemeyer Pavilion, Château La Coste, Provence (2022)
• Annie Morris: When a Happy Thing Falls, Weston Gallery, Yorkshire Sculpture Park (2021)
• Annie Morris: Diaries, Timothy Taylor, London (2020)
• Annie Morris, Union Gallery, London (2019)
• Annie Morris: New Work, Winston Wachter Fine Art, New York City (2018)
• Stacked, Winston Wachter Fine Art, Seattle (2015)
• Annie Morris: Hope From a Thin Line, Winston Wachter Fine Art, New York City (2014
• There Is A Land Called Loss, Pertwee Anderson and Gold Gallery, London (2012)
• Annie Morris, Winston Wachter Fine Art, New York City (2010)
• When A Happy Thing Falls, Allsopp Contemporary Gallery, London (2007) (and touring)
• Annie Morris, Lightbox Gallery, Los Angeles (2006)
• Annie Morris: Glass Paintings, Postcards, Thomas Williams Gallery, London (2005)
• The Man With The Dancing Eyes, Daniel Katz Gallery, London (2004)

Select Group Exhibitions

• Annie Morris and Idris Khan: A Petal Silently Falls, Kotaro Nukaga, Tokyo (2025)
• Two Worlds Entwined: Annie Morris and Idris Khan, Newlands House Gallery, Petworth (2024)
• Right Foot First, Right Foot First, Hampi Art Labs, Vijayanagar (2024)
• Birdsong, Timothy Taylor, London (2023)
• Dialogues, Almine Rech, Paris (2022)
• London Calling, Fundación Bancaja, Valencia (2021)
• Idris Khan and Annie Morris: Re-Imaginings, Galerie Isa, Mumbai (2018)
• Peter Doig Gala Exhibition, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2017)
• Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London (2014)

Further Reading

• Annie Morris’ official website
• Annie Morris’ Instagram
• 2021 article from Hole and Corner
• 2021 interview from The Wick
• 2021 interview from the Financial Times

Annie Morris FAQs

Ocula