Annie Morris

Annie Morris (b.1978, London, UK, lives and works in London) works across artistic disciplines. The thread that links her works together and undergirds her practice is her authoritative and imaginative use of line. Sometimes this takes the form of drawn marks – Morris is a wonderful draughtsman and her fluidity of line belies her command and authority over her subjects – at other times the line becomes stitching, and she sews by hand or by machine into the canvas.

Morris is renowned for her colourful sculptural pieces, these totemic ‘Stack’ sculptures appear to defy gravity, reaching majestically for the sky. Sometimes formed from coloured plaster and sand, at other times cast in bronze, these softly rounded, feminine shapes both arrest and delight the viewer. Described by the Wall Street Journal as ‘Stacks of Joy’. Like trees they share a commonality of type but each edition is distinctly different. Morris’s work is paradoxical in its shades of subtlety and boldness and the artist carefully but apparently unconsciously succeeds in walking the tightrope between the two.

Morris studied at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris between 1997 and 2001 under Giuseppe Penone before completing her education at the Slade School of Fine Art in London in 2003. 2021 marked the artist’s first museum exhibition, with a solo presentation of sculptures and tapestries at Yorkshire Sculpture Park’s Weston Gallery.

-Jane Neal