{"id":135,"date":"2017-12-04T23:17:18","date_gmt":"2017-12-04T23:17:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/artcriticism\/?p=135"},"modified":"2017-12-11T15:52:25","modified_gmt":"2017-12-11T15:52:25","slug":"julia-morrisroe-a-sorted-sensory-overload","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/artcriticism\/2017\/12\/04\/julia-morrisroe-a-sorted-sensory-overload\/","title":{"rendered":"Julia Morrisroe: A Sorted Sensory Overload"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Riley McBride<\/p>\n

“What does it take to make a painting today, ” asked Julia Morrisroe in front of a crowd of faculty, art students, and\u00a0Valdosta’s\u00a0community.\u00a0On September 17, 2017, the Dedo Maranville Gallery at Valdosta State University presented\u00a0Y\/Our Eyes<\/i>,\u00a0an\u00a0installation by\u00a0Morrisroe. The exhibition opened after an artist\u2019s talk given that warmly greeted the crowd and spoke briefly about the former work of Morrisoe’s and her work currently displayed in the gallery.\u00a0Morrisroe creates contemporary abstract works that explore the idea of\u00a0interpreting the information and data emitted from phones, TV, all around us.\u00a0She uses\u00a0content that can range anywhere from sunsets of the natural world\u00a0to characters from Walt Disney.\u00a0She\u00a0creates work using images based on the unconfined data of the world.<\/p>\n

Morrisroe made the choice to display her artwork\u00a0unconventionally. Unlike\u00a0any\u00a0other\u00a0installation at the Dedo Maranville Gallery, Morrisroe has painted the walls with organic jumbles of gray lines that reside under her paintings and prints. These lines do not distract from the paintings but\u00a0create\u00a0a\u00a0whimsical atmosphere. Instead of showing the paintings neatly side by side, Morrisroe dedicated a section of the gallery to paintings and prints\u00a0hung\u00a0in a\u00a0salon-style,\u00a0a style\u00a0used\u00a0during the 19th\u00a0century. This\u00a0allowed the display of many paintings on a wall, on top and below, in order to conserve\u00a0space.\u00a0Though this is not the traditional gallery display,\u00a0it was the most thoughtful and organized display of art I have experienced at this gallery. This style of display was most likely successful because Morrisroe chose to part with labels residing next to each work of art like many artists normally include. If the descriptions would have been included, the wall may appear excessive and uncontrolled. To compensate for the absence of descriptions, a piece of paper\u00a0that accounted for each work\u00a0could be found on a table near the entrance of the\u00a0gallery.<\/p>\n

HMG 111913a, Hambidge<\/em> is a twelve by twelve inches acrylic painting on\u00a0unstretched\u00a0canvas. The abstract painting uses primarily light blues and pinks in the color palette. The focus of the work is a light blue mound shape in the foreground surrounded by a light pink, more angular shape that is larger and behind it. I found myself attempting to\u00a0study\u00a0this painting, and as I looked further, more layers in the painting uncovered themselves. Morrisroe\u2019s paintings have many layers that do not always speak out at first glance. After observing them for longer than a glimpse, it is revealed that many vibrant colors are used in the underpainting. Hints of these colors can be seen in the details and negative spaces Morrisroe leaves in the paintings, especially in HMG 111913a, Hambidge<\/em>.\u00a0Each layer has a different texture created by what looks like both brushstrokes and the use of thick paint. I was convinced that this was an abstracted gravestone;\u00a0however,\u00a0Morrisroe\u00a0revealed in her artist\u2019s talk that this blue rounded shape was inspired by a chimney of a dilapidated house. She emphasized that\u00a0the shape of the chimney was rather strange and stuck out to her. The difference between what I believed the painting was and what the painting actually represented shows that her paintings can be subjective to the viewer. If she chose not to reveal the influence of her painting, I would have gone the rest of my life believing it was a ruined gravestone.<\/p>\n

\"Painting
Julia Morrisroe, HMG 111913a, Hambidge, Acrylic on canvas, 12×12 inches<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Morrisroe asks the question in the age of photography, \u201cWhat does it take to make a painting?\u201d She explains that her paintings are often\u00a0site-specific, and the experiences around her are what inspire her. For example, she mentioned the way the sun reflects off water when it is setting. I think this was replicated in a painting called \u201cKnowns and Unknowns\u201d. The most prominent colors in this painting are yellows, blues, and greens. The foreground presents the viewer with a large organic shape outlined with cream lines painted over the shape. The shape is surrounded by what looks like water\u00a0constructed\u00a0of many green and blue\u00a0paint\u00a0strokes\u00a0that fade darker towards the bottom of the painting. The background reveals a semicircular shape painted with shades of yellow stripes. This painting is most recognizable as an abstracted sunset on the water. The mix of organic shapes and the repetition of rectangular paint strokes is extremely prominent in this painting,\u00a0creating a successful composition. In the age of photos, Morrisroe could have easily produced a photo of the sunset, but instead she chose to use generalized shapes of a sunset on water as a painting.<\/p>\n

\"Painting
Julia Morrisroe, Knowns and Unknowns 063015, Acrylic on Canvas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As an abstracted painting, this is\u00a0more successful than a realistic photograph\u00a0because it is Morrisroe’s interpretation of the environment she sees. As a photograph, the audience would see Morrisroe’s point of view on the\u00a0environment\u00a0but not the way\u00a0she\u00a0interacts with\u00a0it.<\/p>\n

Morrisroe says, \u201cThe unconscious mind attempts to make sense of this sensory overload, to sort it, arrange it, and make images from it. My paintings focus attention on a consciously constructed image that ignores the precision of the world and revels in the handmade.\u201d\u00a0She implies that she creates work using\u00a0images of the world with\u00a0deliberate\u00a0intent and\u00a0careful assembly.\u00a0Morrisroe “ignores the precision of the world” by loosely interpreting these images,\u00a0using abstraction to describe\u00a0them, allowing them to “revel in the handmade,”\u00a0and\u00a0celebrating the nuances and idiosyncrasies within her use of\u00a0 brushstrokes and\u00a0stylistic\u00a0choices.\u00a0Her paintings are\u00a0an interpretation of the data of the world. The subject matter\u00a0she displays is a simplified version of what she\u00a0sees and the way she has been\u00a0immersed\u00a0in her environment.\u00a0This\u00a0exhibition was triumphant in questioning what it takes to make a painting as Morrisroe presents her audience with an exhibition of abstracted works that are inspired by the flourishing data and information the world supplies.\u00a0By\u00a0immersing the viewer in a salon-style setting, Morrisroe\u00a0has surrounded her viewer with the environment\u00a0she has hand\u00a0crafted.\u00a0\u00a0I\u00a0interpreted the title,\u00a0Y\/Our\u00a0<\/i>Eyes<\/i>,\u00a0as\u00a0Morrisroe\u2019s way of explaining the ways in which humanity as a whole sees the same world but each individual may see it differently than the person standing next to them. This can be applied to the audience when viewing Morrisroe\u2019s installation; the person standing next to you may experience something different than what you see in the work.<\/p>\n

\n

Riley McBride is majoring in art at Valdosta State University, and is originally from Quitman, Georgia. Riley is focusing on photography and painting.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Riley McBride “What does it take to make a painting today, ” asked Julia Morrisroe in front of a crowd of faculty, art students, and\u00a0Valdosta’s\u00a0community.\u00a0On September 17, 2017, the Dedo Maranville Gallery at Valdosta State University presented\u00a0Y\/Our Eyes,\u00a0an\u00a0installation by\u00a0Morrisroe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":428,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"class_list":["post-135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-morrisroe","tag-morrisroe"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/artcriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/artcriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/artcriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/artcriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/428"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/artcriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/artcriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":304,"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/artcriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions\/304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/artcriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/artcriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/artcriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}