Past Exhibition
A Garden
Morgan Wills
30 Apr – 29 May 2021
Sid Motion Gallery is pleased to present ‘A Garden’ a solo exhibition of new paintings by Morgan Wills.
These new works are painted from the artist’s memories and imagination. Much like dreamscapes or half remembered moments, the perspective of the imagery is warped. We find ourselves in the middle of a scene, yet it is detached from us: we are looking down on to it, or into it, at once.
Although the viewer is challenged to confront the actions portrayed within these busy scenes, the gaze of the characters we meet are turned away – non-confrontational and distracted with their chores. These grouped figures are engaged with an activity or communal effort that is unspecified to us, yet it is seemingly what the paintings are depicting.
By painting these scenes and their inhabitants from memory, Wills explores how his subjects can be rendered expressively, rather than naturalistically. The figures have limited facial expressions but their postures and gestures give the overall impression of their mood and intention.
As well as referring to a jumble of autobiographical experiences, their frantic activity is a nod to the human condition. The composition and directional lines within the paintings dart ones eye around the canvases, echoing these memories as well as the seasonal and cyclical changes in the nature of the gardens that our subjects inhabit.
The stages for these scenes are the constructed natural spaces in the city – gardens, parks and commons. Just as these spaces mimic the countryside, the paintings are a synthesised version of reality, emphasised by their heightened palate and the personification of the plants, they are constructs in their own right.
Artist Biography
Morgan Wills (b. 1992) studied Painting at Wimbledon College of Art, graduating in 2014. His recent exhibitions include: ‘But… What it?’; ’12 Conversations’, and ‘Play on Repeat’, Sid Motion Gallery, London, 2019, 2018 and 2016; ‘Wisdom Tooth’ Unit1 Gallery/Workshop, London, 2017 (following a three-month studio residency); ‘John Moores Painting Prize’, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, 2018; ‘Sorry About Last Night’, The Washington, Sheffield; ‘Versions’, Benevolent Association of Excellent Solutions (BAES), London; ‘Bloomberg New Contemporaries’, 2015, ICA, London and Backlit Gallery, Nottingham; ‘MK Open’, MK gallery, Milton Keynes, and ‘Assembly’ at Triangle Gallery, London. Wills work was included in the group show ‘Hyper Mesh’, at Assembly Point in January 2019; a pop up exhibition hosted by Sid Motion Gallery and Bosse & Baum with BeAdvisors during Frieze London in 2020; and at Sunday Art Fair in October 2019.
