Victoria Morton ‘Her Guitars’

Installation view, 'Her Guitars', The Modern Institute, Osborne Street, Glasgow, 2011
Victoria Morton
The Modern Institute, 14–20 Osborne Street, Glasgow
10/09/2011—22/10/2011
  • Installation view, 'Her Guitars', The Modern Institute, Osborne Street, Glasgow, 2011
  • Installation view, 'Her Guitars', The Modern Institute, Osborne Street, Glasgow, 2011
  • Installation view, 'Her Guitars', The Modern Institute, Osborne Street, Glasgow, 2011
  • Installation view, 'Her Guitars', The Modern Institute, Osborne Street, Glasgow, 2011
  • Installation view, 'Her Guitars', The Modern Institute, Osborne Street, Glasgow, 2011
  • Victoria Morton, Stenographia, 2011, Mixed media, 71 x 34 x 34 cm
  • Victoria Morton, Stenographia (detail), 2011, Mixed media, 71 x 34 x 34 cm
  • Victoria Morton, Her Guitars, 2011, Oil on linen, 36 x 41 x 2 cm
  • Victoria Morton, Forever, 2011, Oil on linen, 40 x 30 x 2 cm
  • Victoria Morton, Swinging Sleeves For An Unmarried Woman, 2011, Mixed media, 147 x 70 x 64 cm
  • Victoria Morton, The Wild Grasses, 2011, Pigment and linseed oil on board, 30 x 25 x 2 cm
  • Victoria Morton, Nature Study, 2011, Oil on linen, 51 x 41 x 2 cm
  • Victoria Morton, River Meeting, 2011, Oil on canvas, 40 x 30 x 2 cm

This exhibition of new work by Victoria Morton is the artist’s third exhibition with the gallery. Mostly produced in Italy, her new work continues to explore and re-evaluate representation in painting. Morton develops ideas about ‘extended concentration’ and ‘ongoing unfolding composition’ including ‘bodily experience’ and ‘gestures from the everyday’ by working with the expanded space of painting.

“I work with a lot of things at once, they are all feeding into each other, they are a continuation of the same process up to a certain point. I am not permanently working on a specific painting. I leave it alone for a long time and then come back to it. I do this to build time into a painting. A longer amount of time than you are ever going to spend looking at it.”

In this exhibition paintings, pattern making, objects, musical instruments and photography will be exhibited together in what Morton calls ‘a sensational narrative in parts’. Central to this new body of work has been her exploration of the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum in Boston. Its collections were amassed and arranged by Stewart Gardner over her lifetime, and the museum has remained unchanged since her death in 1924. Morton has been researching its collections and archives, which include historic painting, rare books, furniture, textiles and tapestry. She will have the inaugural exhibition in the museum’s new wing, designed by Renzo Piano, opening in January 2012.

Victoria Morton has had solo exhibitions at Inverleith House, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (2010) and The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (2002), and a two-person exhibition ‘Sun By Ear’ with Katy Dove, Tramway, Glasgow (2007). Group exhibitions include Painting Not Painting at Tate St. Ives, Cornwall (2003), S.M.A.K., Ghent (2001) and ‘Edge of the Real’, The Whitechapel Gallery, London (2004). As well as exhibiting her own work, Morton is a member of the band, Muscles of Joy.

A new book about Morton’s work, published by Inverleith House Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh is now available.