Review

A review of Nancy J. Morrison's Reflections

Nancy J. Morrison, "Ladder To The Moon," acrylic and graphite pencil, 20” x 16". Image: courtesy of the gallery

Charno Gallery, Kansas City Artists Coalition
Kansas City, Missouri
March 5 — March 26, 2010

There is an old adage that states something along the lines of this: Anything an artist creates will invariably be a self-portrait. The paintings by Nancy J. Morrison that comprise her solo show Reflections reinforce this notion. Morrison’s small, surrealistic compositions and vernacular style of painting belie a personal symbology recurrent throughout each canvas.

Morrison relies on a group of characters: a snake-like belt, a pair of birds, and an anamorphic paintbrush, among others. “Nearly everything in the image means something or is a symbol for something in my past or current life,” Morrison writes in her artist statement. “For example, the belt represents my father and the flower represents my mother.” This single sentence is the only available key given to decode the imagery, which in itself would be difficult to read unless you had an intimate knowledge of the artist and her family.

Having said that, once a bit is learned about Morrison, the pieces of the visual puzzle come together with varying degrees of success. The birds symbolize Morrison’s two siblings, and are seen often in the same compositions as the blonde girl (Morrison, assumedly), the belt (father), and the coneflower, which Morrison chose specifically to represent her mother because of its tenacity and its ability to root itself almost anywhere. These family portraits invite the viewer’s imagination to concoct multitudes of scenarios and conundrums as to the selection of the imagery itself. Was the artist’s father strict? Did her siblings fly the proverbial coop? And what of her own self-portrait? Always shown as a young girl in various outfits such as tutus and frilly dresses, and serenely positioned in dreamscapes of her own past and present, Morrison alludes to a time in her earlier life in which she continually revisits. Why? Are the answers within the cryptic visual clues that pepper her canvases? Or are we as the viewers supposed to insert our own stories?

Nancy J. Morrison, "Unknown Future," acrylic and graphite pencil 24” x 20”. Image: courtesy of the gallery

This is the most interesting aspect of Morrison’s work. Deciphering the subtle messages (if you look closely, the birds have the initials of the artist’s siblings on their tail feathers), and pondering over the more abstract symbolic inclusions, such as the scalloped line that is another recurring visual cue, can hold a puzzle lover’s attention for quite awhile.

Certain art historical references can be seen as well. The young blonde protagonist strikes a Botticellian Birth of Venus pose, complete with a seashell in one painting, and Morrison attests to using Grant Wood’s pitchfork from American Gothic as representational of her farming ancestry. Morrison also states that the origin of the scalloped line that appears again and again in her work is homage to Cy Twombly. As for the letters that appear in various points around that line, Morrison goes so far as to say that, “Sometimes the letters mean something, sometimes the spaces mean something.”

The writing present in many of the canvases also holds significance. These small quotes, many of them old axioms but some swiped from fortune cookies, imbue a sense of mid-20th-century American morality. These doctrines, such as, “Good things come to those who wait,” seem on the verge of cliché, and combined with Morrison’s painting style and folksy personifications, can easily slip into the realm of hokey.

Nancy J. Morrison, "Friends," acrylic and graphite pencil, 40” x 30". Image: courtesy of the gallery

One exception to this is the painting Friends. This painting shares all of the characteristics of the other paintings, yet the sinister undertones combined with Morrison’s down-home way of character manipulation, produces an eerie effect that can be felt in vernacular art. Two young girls stand facing each other. They hold hands and speak long strings of compliments to each other through smiling mouths. This innocent image is immediately subverted by a writhing pink arm which arches from the dark-haired girl on the right’s shoulder, above the blonde protagonist, and down behind her back to reveal a hand clenching a long kitchen knife. Above the scene are written the words, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer… but you better watch your back.” These sentences are reinforced by the scalloped line that underlines them, cutting them off from the action below and keeping them in the yellowed sky.

This is where Morrison’s work comes together. With equal parts sweet and sordid, and in this Midwest-style of painting she has adopted, this canvas emits an old-timey creepiness that is usually reserved for old blues albums where ghosts warble through the cracks and pops of the past and sing of tragedy with dead lips.

Reflections as a body of work forces the viewer to attempt to solve visual puzzles. Tendency for cliché aside, this exhibition can touch on some bygone sentiments that, though a tad weird, can set the stage for an interesting visual experience.

-re-

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