Paul Morrison: 'Auctorum' (Our Day In Sheffield)

Paul Morrison, 'Stipe', Acrylic On Gallery Wall, 2012

I haven’t been to many exhibitions this year so was pleased, last week, to accompany a trip to Sheffield galleries with GCSE Art students from the school where I work.  We visited the Millennium and Graves Galleries and the day was a great success.  Dispiritingly, these school trips can become largely about risk assessment, crowd management and explanations of why we can’t just spend the day in KFC, but our students seemed engaged with much of the work on display and I discovered the impressive work of Paul Morrison, - a new artist to me.

Paul Morrison, 'Rhexia',  Lino Cut, 2011

Paul Morrison, 'Anarcardium', Gold Leaf & Acrylic On Linen, 2011

Morrison enjoys an international reputation but his Millennium show; ‘Auctorum’ is the first in his hometown.  It features paintings, drawings, sculpture, film and one large, site-specific work painted directly onto the wall.  His method involves sampling graphic motifs from disparate historical and stylistic traditions.  These include high art, pop and illustrative sources which are digitally unified into perplexing composite images, often evoking fictitious landscapes.  The resulting drawings, prints and paintings are rendered with graphic boldness, usually in black and white but sometimes in gold or silver too.

Paul Morrison, 'Tropopause', Acrylic On Linen, 2012

   

Initially, these works could be categorized as merely decorative, but I find they have strong philosophical dimensions and considerable tension through their conflicting pictorial conventions and scalar manipulations.  Juxtaposed motifs are skilfully organised to create illusionistic depth but maintain a hallucinatory quality and ‘Alice In Wonderland’ viewpoint through the dramatic magnification of botanical foreground elements.  The sense of bizarre impossibility feeds further from the lack of any atmospheric aerial perspective and ‘cool’ overall rendering of unrelated elements.

Paul Morrison, 'Anthonaxthum', Acrylic On Linen, 2007

Morrison’s relationship to figuration generally, and landscape in particular, directly opposes John Ruskin’s search for truth through observation of the specific. 

‘Ruskin’s aim was to eschew conventionalized landscape painting and, “insist on the necessity, as well as the dignity, of an earnest, faithful, loving study of nature as she is, rejecting with abhorrence all that man has done to alter and modify her”’ [1.]

John Ruskin, 'Waterfall At Brantwood', Watercolour

This is ironic as the Millenium also contains a permanent display devoted to Ruskin.  Instead, we’re brought to the realisation that our perception of reality is actually shaped by the generalised formal systems we have constructed to depict it.  The varying degrees of synthesis implicit in his diverse stylistic vocabulary stimulate a philosophical investigation into our coding and mediation of visual information.

‘In the worlds Morrison cobbles together, Ruskin’s damning label of “combinations whose highest praise is that they are impossible” becomes a badge of the highest order.’ [2.]

Such concepts are rather beyond GCSE level but many of our students responded positively to Morrison’s work, on a visual level at least.

Paul Morrison, 'Untitled 11', Screenprint, 2002

After lunch we visited the nearby Graves Gallery and I was reacquainted with one of my favourite regional collections.  For me, the highlights include a Sickert, two Auerbachs and a terrific Harold Gillman.  You could teach an entire module on colour theory from that last one.

Richard W. Sickert, 'L'Hotel Royal, Dieppe, France',  Oil On Canvas, 1894

Frank Auerbach, 'Looking Towards Mornington Crescent - Night',
Oil On Canvas, 1972-73

Frank Auerbach, 'Head of JYM'  Oil On Canvas, 1973

Harold Gilman, 'An Eating House', Oil On Canvas, 1913-14

I like the way Sheffield redeveloped its cultural quarter and linked its galleries, theatres and public squares together with the tropical Winter Garden. It was depressing to hear that spending cuts will soon remove all the Millennium Gallery’s public funding and one can only hope that some way to keep it going can be found.

Millennium Gallery, Sheffield

Winter Garden, Sheffield

[1.] & [2.]:  Christopher Miles, 'Black & White And Brilliant All Over: Paul Morrison's Pastiche Pastoral' In 'Paul Morrison' (Exhibition Catalogue), Las Vegas, Las Vegas Art Museum, 2008