Margaret Morrison "Larger Than Life"
Woodward Gallery
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Like high fructose versions of Proust’s madeleines, Margaret Morrison’s sweet treats send our mind skipping back in time – specifically, back to childhood. When we were small, the kind of sugary goodies she paints loomed large, were prized and frequently forbidden; for after all, the injunction to “eat your vegetables,” did not include candy corn, except of course on that one anarchic day each year when children rule: Halloween. More often than not, Morrison’s imagery doesn’t evoke last Halloween, but rather trick-or-treating long ago. Some of the confections that she paints are hardy perennials: Hostess cream-filled cupcakes and cellophane-wrapped Christmas peppermints. Others, like the crimson trio depicted in Wax Lips, lounged in the limelight decades ago, before the noun “collagen” entered the popular lexicon. Now they’re artifacts from a bygone era.
Candy is dandy, but flowers have powers. Morrison’s lovingly painted solitary rubrum Lily measures four and a half feet from petal to petal. Writ this large, we find ourselves “in the beauty of the lily,” to borrow a haunting phrase from The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Here we behold the blossoming world from the viewpoint of a bee diving though pale, silken petals into a realm of graceful green stamens and ovoid anthers dusted with dark red pollen. Life is sweet! Life is rich!
[Image: Margaret Morrison "Candy Jars" (2008) Oil on canvas 64 x 72 in.]
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Schedule
from March 07, 2009 to May 09, 2009