Marc Selwyn Fine Art is pleased to present a selection of recent works on paper by acclaimed Los Angeles based artist Kristen Morgin.  
 
Best known for her unique and masterful work in unfired clay, Morgin’s practice has incorporated a wide and unconventional mix of materials including ceramic, cement, paint, wood and found objects, often involving drawing on a clay surface.  In this exhibition, Morgin’s drawings on paper, which had previously been a more private part of her practice, are larger in scale and publicly exhibited for the first time, unaccompanied by sculpture and treated as important works in their own right.
 
As the artist describes, “During the pandemic when shows were being cancelled, I turned inward and felt the freedom to work in drawing which was often inspired by poetry or the lyrics of a song I was listening to.  My mind was allowed to wander freely in multiple directions.”
 
Stream of conscious narratives and dreamlike scenarios incorporate multiple collaged and taped elements which reflect Morgin’s peripatetic thought process. In The Puppet and the Whale, a Pinocchio hand puppet rests above a large Killer Whale floating in space.  In Vanishing Wild Things, Pitfall Harry runs though a forest scene from Maurice Sendak’s iconic children’s story.  In some cases, unwanted images have been cut out and replaced with new ones.  The cobbled together nature of the work also evokes a nostalgia for childhood craft, while Morgin’s eclectic mix of past and present invites the viewer to travel through time.
 
Morgin draws on a wide variety of source material ranging from precise renderings of scientific images, children’s book illustrations, puppetry, and folk art, always mixing high and low culture with an eye towards eliminating traditional hierarchies.  
 
Morgin was born in 1968 in Brunswick, Georgia. She completed her BA at California State University, Hayward, and her MFA at Alfred University. Morgin’s work is in the permanent collections of institutions such as the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Hammer Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami, and The Rubell Family Collection. Her work has been included in exhibitions such as The Thing (Hammer Museum, Los Angeles), Monumental (New Museum, New York) and the Istanbul Biennial, curated by Jens Hoffman. She lives and works in Los Angeles.