Julia Morison
Um/Er

Um/Er is an exhibition of new paintings by Julia Morison. Installed across both exhibition spaces Um/Er brings together three bodies of work – a suite of paintings on board, smaller paintings on canvas and a series of 30 works on paper. Each series develops on key themes in Morison’s practice, delving into the visceral, the surreal and the mythic landscape of the psyche. 

In the downstairs gallery Morison’s dark inky marks and dream-like humanoid forms appear suspended in thought, held aloft among pools of their own non-verbal utterances. Upstairs, loose watery spills mingle with fine figurative line work in a series of works on paper that conjure a soft and shifting psychological terrain.

Um/Er is timed to coincide with the opening of Morison’s large-scale installation Head[case]: Julia Morison which opens at Objectspace in Ponsonby on Friday 6 December 2019. Head(case) was originally presented as a smaller project at Two Rooms in 2015. Commissioned by Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū earlier this year, Head[case] will be launched alongside a new publication of the same name published by Objectspace featuring essays by Kim Paton and Anna Smith.