Suzi Morris @ Herrick Gallery

A fascination with the independent nature of oil paint and its capacity to modify and spread unpredictably, led Suzi Morris to discover a synergy that seems to exist between the substance of oil paint and viral behaviour. The sciences of virology and genomics capture her imagination in multifarious ways and have become a medium through which decisions are made in her painting. Working in multiple layers of glaze using high resin oil colour Morris’ paintings become a sensory discovery through the substance of oil paint and its material formulation.
The Viral Sublime, the title of her project, has taken Morris into laboratories and instigated collaborations with scientists. These partnerships have a profound effect on her imagination and the decisions she makes in painting. The development of her painting and use of paint draws deeply on the imaginative processing resulting from a lifetime of medical treatment in suppressing Keratitis. The paintings are in part, projections of her imaginary perception of the interior landscape of the body: cerebral images of abstract thoughts on parts of the body that remain unseen to the naked eye. Vertical lines function as ‘biomarkers,’ which reference the measurable indicators in the body and pay homage to the strengths and vulnerabilities of the human spirit.