ABOUT ME
ANN MORGAN
I paint large to take up space unapologetically, without asking permission. I use horizons, water, sun, moon, and stars to anchor the paintings to memory, to the body and the physical world, while layers of oil paint reflect the abstract noise of digital reality. Early marks remain visible as later ones build over them, allowing each painting to function as a record of time rather than an image of it – and in opposition to the speed and blur of our virtual lives.
ABOUT ME
ANN MORGAN
I paint large to take up space unapologetically, without asking permission. I use horizons, water, sun, moon, and stars to anchor the paintings to memory, to the body and the physical world, while layers of oil paint reflect the abstract noise of digital reality. Early marks remain visible as later ones build over them, allowing each painting to function as a record of time rather than an image of it – and in opposition to the speed and blur of our virtual lives.
My mother gave me crayons as soon as she was pretty sure I wouldn’t eat them, and I’ve been making images ever since. I have included some sort of technology in my process since before I knew what I was doing; I would send my dad to work with my drawings to copy on the Xerox, cut up and reassemble the results to be copied again and again until there was nothing recognizable. Then I’d start over.
By the time I started my undergrad degree at Michigan State University, I’d had a few computer classes and spent entire summers building canvases and painting with my first mentor, Elaine Perret. When I graduated with a Bachelor’s of Fine Art with a year off in there as an Americorps*VISTA, I had learned HTML and started referencing my digital work I did in my paintings. I used the first iterations of Adobe Photoshop and whatever other tools I could find on the computers in the graphic design lab.
After graduating and 20 years of happily teaching computer classes, working at a software company, and then a tech-oriented position at an association, I was burned out and wondering about painting again. After two years of struggling, I left my full time position and started doing just that, plus contract web development, digital marketing and design.
