SUSAN MORRIS

Central to her work is the use of digital tracking technologies worn on the body. These devices record daily routines, repetitive gestures, sleep cycles, and exposure to light, translating the abstract structures of clock time into visual form. Early works such as the Plumb Line Drawings and Motion Capture Drawings explore involuntary movement and chance within strict systems, revealing the limits of bodily control under imposed temporal regimes. Generated through rule-based processes, these works balance conceptual precision with unexpected visual nuance.

Morris is best known for her tapestries, which transform long-term biometric data into woven compositions using computer-controlled Jacquard looms. In these works, years of activity, rest, and daylight are rendered as shifting fields of colour and rhythm, combining advanced technology with one of the oldest textile traditions. While rooted in empirical measurement, the tapestries retain a poetic, almost meditative presence, aligning scientific observation with sensorial experience.

Most recently, Morris’s work has been included in numerous museum and institutional exhibitions across the UK, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Denmark, and the United States. Several large-scale tapestries are currently on view at the MIT Museum in Boston as part of LightenUP! (until August 2026) and at the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich in Living by the Rule: Contemporary Meets Medieval (16 May – 4 October 2026). These presentations affirm her position as a key figure in contemporary practice at the intersection of art, technology, and time.

Courtesy Bartha_contemporary