Morgan Adler
Artist’s studio Fall 2021, working on The Great Wave for her solo exhibition Blameless as Daylight.
Morgan Adler (‘94, Cleveland, OH) received a B.F.A. in Painting from Savannah College of Art and Design in 2018. She has exhibited throughout the United States and attended a residency in the Netherlands. She currently lives and works between Chicago and Savannah, Georgia.
Can you tell us a bit about the process of making your work?
My process is motivated by a deep fascination with the behavior of paint. I enjoy experimenting with textures, movement, and acrylics of various viscosities. The abstract landscapes are constructed in a topographical manner on the floor, with an intuitive negotiation between thick and thin paints that mobilize and barricade to create an atmospheric space all of their own.
Tell us more about your work in the show.
These two works were done in the depths of quarantine. The landscapes are of nowhere in particular, but rather a meditation on a place with no time, logical space, or habitable weather conditions. I think of the details of clashing paint, hypnotic fluidity, and urgent strokes as narrators of the backdrop they depict. My work is often a response to current events and personal experience.
A Place Twice Vanished drying outside on the studio porch in Savannah, Georgia, Spring 2021.
What are some references you draw upon in your work? Are there any themes in particular that you like to focus on when creating?
Many of my paintings are inspired by poems, plays, and songs. I’ll occasionally borrow a line for a title. I see my landscapes relating more to the interiority of emotions rather than the exterior world, so I find a lot of inspiration from other evocative forms of storytelling. The tradition of landscape painting is grounded in set design. I consider that often in my practice. I am also very inspired by traveling, my favorite place being Yellowstone National Park. There’s nothing more inspiring to me than nature that’s beautiful enough to kill you.
Where are some of your favorite spaces that support contemporary art or design? Now that the art has an online presence, has that changed?
I love and miss seeing art in person. There’s nothing like stepping right up to a juicy painting at the High Museum in Atlanta or exploring the contemporary collection for free at the Cleveland Museum of Art. I try to support my local communities as much as possible during this time, but I also really enjoy the insider access that platforms like Instagram offer to artists and art lovers.
Who are some of your favorite artists? Or who has been inspirational recently?
Is That All There Is To A Fire? Acrylic on plastic paper, 14 x 11 in., 2020.
I am a huge fan of Emma Webster’s large scale landscape paintings. I find her thoughts on the tradition and future of landscape painting inspiring, poetic, and a bit apocalyptic. I am also very charmed by Genieve Figgis, Enrique Martinez Celaya, and Richard Mayhew.
Do you have any shows coming up? Anything else you would like to share?
I completed a solo exhibition at the end of 2021, Blameless as Daylight, in Savannah, Georgia at Chapel Gallery. Since then, I have packed and moved my studio to Chicago! Things are still getting settled, but I am looking forward to what this new year and city has to offer.
Morgan Adler’s work is included in our show “We Are Still in Eden,” January 7th - Febuary 28th, 2022. Visit her website here or on Instagram @m0rgtr0n.