Mali Morris

texts by Mali Morris
Parents, Poems, Paint (from Mali Morris: Painting, published by RA, March 2019, text by Sam Cornish, Preface by Mel Gooding.) My father was born at the foot of Snowdon, in an isolated house on the edge of a village. He spoke Welsh before he learned English. My maternal grandmother was from the Midlands and when I was born in 1945 my parents were living with her, in Caernarfon, so English was our home language. When I was about ten, although I had no Welsh to speak of, my father explained the complex structures in the poetry he loved... read more...		Creekside (Small) 2020 15 x 21 cm (32 x 38 cm framed) Acrylic on canvas Private Collection

In Sober Ecstasy, by Hans Hofmann, Royal Academy Magazine, Summer 2016 I wasn’t ready for Hans Hofmann’s paintings when I first saw them in American art magazines in the late 1960s. I remember thinking they were too strident, too muscular, and that I didn’t like them. A few years later I saw some in a Cork Street gallery; I stayed a while to have a good look... read more...		Snow Owl 1981 153 x 153 cm Acrylic on canvas Private Collection

	For the Royal Academy of Arts Magazine, Spring 2014 There is a 47-second film clip on YouTube of a seated Matisse cutting into a sheet of painted paper. The scissors look very big, a curvy shape appears, and he begins to twist the colour yellow around in space... read more...
Glide 2014 100 x 150 cm Acrylic on canvas Private Collection

*For catalogue of Painting Past Present, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne, 28th September 2013 – 9th Feruary 2014* This painting shone out as I walked through the galleries, and I kept coming back to it. Winifred Nicholson's written observations on colour, how it constructs luminosity and pictorial space, are evangelical and persuasive... read more...		Due North 2013 70 x 80 cm Acrylic on canvas Private Collection


	Mali Morris writing about rediscovering printmaking I made a series of photographic screen prints in the early 70s, and occasional mono-prints over the years, some on a residency in Canada, but I came to fine art printing fairly recently, invited by the Royal Academy Schools to work on an edition with them in 2011. I loved making Ruby Tuesday there with Hen Coleman. The crucial moment was when I asked for a second red to be pulled over the top right rectangle... read more...
Bridge 2013 63 x 72 cm in frame Silkscreen (edition 30)

Toussaint I – IV and Mardi Gras 2014-19 Silkscreen prints (edition 30 each print) 40 x 48 cm I made this set of four prints with Kip Gresham, a master printer based in Cambridge... read more...
Toussaint III 2014 40 x 48 cm Silkscreen (edition 30)

	Mali Morris interviews Geoff Rigden Little Rootie Tootie is a painting I have of yours, from 1979... read more... Catalogue essay for Marilyn Hallam There is a double intimacy in these paintings that I find strange and distinctive…. read more... Catalogue Introduction, Camberwell College of Arts BA Fine Art Degree show, 2012 Time to move on, time to get going... read more...

	*For the catalogue of Invaluable, at APT Gallery London, 2011* Sometimes, during working periods that are more exploratory than usual, a painting seems to arrive by accident. It interrupts to announce a whole new chapter - although what that will turn out to be is a mystery, for quite a while... read more...
Low Pink Hum 1998 57 x 66 cm Acrylic on canvas

*For catalogue of Fade Away, Transition Gallery, London 2010, travelling to Gallery North, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2011* Surfaced Later (3) was a few months in the making, one of those paintings which hang around the studio unresolved, some of them never completed. Eventually, in a final stage... read more...
Surfaced Later (3) 2010 26 x 31 cm Acrylic on canvas

Dark Canopy 2010 30 x 40 cm Acrylic on canvas Private Collection	Mali Morris on the paintings of Robert Welch, 2010 " I found your pessimism so exhilarating..." read more... Introduction by Mali Morris, in the book 'A Sore Head' by Robert Welch, 2015, available from: http://www.aptstudios.org/education/a_sore_head.html " The stroke happened in the night..." read more...

TOUCH - An exhibition of paintings curated by Mali Morris. April 17th - June 17th, 2007 We first crossed paths, all of us in this show, on the third floor at Manresa Road in the then Department of Painting, before the Big Move to Millbank. In my rosy memory... read more...
Degrees Of Freedom 2005 36 x 46 cm Acrylic on canvas

	The Contemporary Relevance of Albert Marquet Pierre Schneider, in his monumental study, illuminates the early importance of Marquet to Matisse, - for example in terms of how drawing relates to painting, and how form becomes sign. This suggests why Marquet is being looked at today with renewed interest by painters of all generations. Perhaps one reason for his contemporary relevance is the pared-down economy of his method, inviting reflection on the nature of painting... read more...
Early 2012 26 x 30 cm Acrylic on canvas

Mali Morris: Notes on some titles, 2008 - 2010 Titles are given after the paintings are finished, to identify each one. They are not meant to explain or describe, but could act as invitations to enter the world of the painting. Although colour, and how it can construct light and space, is one of the main concerns in these paintings, quite a few of their titles refer to poems, and some to music... read more...
Durango 2013 35 x 45 cm Acrylic on canvas

	Mali Morris interviewed by the poet Tamar Yoseloff, an edited version appearing in the magazine Art World, August 2008 Your work has gone through many different phases. Can you say something about your early development? I studied at Newcastle in the sixties, Richard Hamilton ran the Basic Course in the First Year, - it was very lively, a lot going on... read more...
As Like As (Pink) 2006 30 x 40 cm Acrylic on canvas

Angel and People - Purchased 2009 by Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales, Cardiff, with the assistance of the Derek Williams Trust. Now on long loan to Maggie’s Cardiff, a new centre designed by Dow Jones Architects, London. I painted Angel and People thirty years ago. Along with most of my paintings from that time, it was made flat on the floor, on unprimed canvas stretched across a solid board, and only later put onto a stretcher... read more...
Angel and People 1979 180 x 171cm Acrylic on canvas

	BACK TO FRONT - Notes on the exhibition at Eagle Gallery, London, 14th September - 13th October 2012 On a wall in the studio, away from the painting area, I am in the habit of pinning up (on impulse, with instinct) postcards, cuttings, and objects. These don't have a direct influence my work, but they sometimes show unexpected links... list of images & read more...
Wall Of Images 'Back To Front' exhibition Foyer, Eagle Gallery, London 2012

Affect and Exhibition - Notes for a discussion at RA, Learning Studio, 2017 I thought about the two words, effect and affect, and the ways I use them myself... read more...
Tennant Gallery, RA 2019

texts by Mali Morris