One of the great pleasers in life is art, we engage with it for inspiration, it conveys wonder and brilliance. Like magic, the artist reconstructs the world and represents the miracle of life through gesture and patience. I had learned that I don’t actually have the patience to make the kind of art that is truly “representational” or “real”. Or do I? Do I have the kind of patience and wonder to explore texture, surface, space and light. To investigate if a mark is satisfying or if one object against another object does anything to bring new life or implication or animation. If colour affects mood or feelings. If texture can be implied or manipulated to imply memory. Is this possibly more real than realism.
Artists I am looking at are investigating all manner of “things”, and ways of making art, these artists are all exploring, amongst other ideas, new materialism. Materiality of stuff and considerations and usages, form, outside of usual painting on hung wall. Feminism is present in the works, through the making of. These works embody spatial considerations. the body is characterised through size, gesture, and form.
The work could be thought of as purely decorative, of being female, colourful, and pretty. Abstract in its simplicity. Nothing pictorial or representational, these artists are investigating innate character of materials, their agency, life and affect. Giving agency to materials like paint and surface and things. Flattened hierarchy’s celebrating the “stuffness” of stuff, its simplicity, the rightness of the way things are. Pure in form, parted from use. Departed from function. Referencing abstraction, and the decorative arts.
Capitalism, money, saleability and the traditionally female craft forms. Value! How one values one’s worth. Time and energy, thought and life. Traditionally woman’s work like quilting and decoration is not a saleable commodity. Its what one does to make oneself feel better, to “decorate” (dirty word.)
How do you take a wall painting off a wall. How do you sell an experience, these questions have been answered by the simple fact that people make careers out this kind of art making, but embedded in my practice is a kind of self-sabotage, I can see it in others work though they may not identify with this notion. What am I worth, why do I produce work that is not a quantifiable commodity? My diminished self-worth repeatedly tells me I’m not good enough to engage with this practice but my creative driving force (whatever that may be) is always pushing me to generate. It’s an absurd conundrum in a capitalist world.
In the shifting of order from story to experience. The narrative lies deep inside the making and the doing. It’s embedded in the gestures and marks.
- Kate Stewart – Intermission, Five Walls Projects, Footscray 2025
Curtain, steel rod, metal blind cord, painted velvet, steel painted shelving brackets, polycarbonate roofing, ball baring, dimensions variable
2025 - Fiona Morgan – Suspended Dialogue 2025
Suspended Dialogue
Commercial rubber exercise band, rock, antique breadboard, steel commercial shelf bracket
2024 - Fiona Morgan and Kate Stewart – Installation View – Sandringham studio
Fiona Morgan
Acrylic painting on canvas, hung on cardboard tube and builders twine
2025
Fiona Morgan
Peg board painting,
Pegboard, steel tube, synthetic builders twine, stone and pigment, oil stick on floor
2025
Material Exchange installation view Fiona Morgan and Kate Stewart
Fiona Morgan acrylic painting on canvas, Kate Stewart trapeze installation, wool, steel pipe, curtain chain, Fiona Morgan floor work, stainless steel table top, found plastic objects
all 2025
Collaborative interjections – Fiona Morgan painting on canvas – cut and arranged by Kate Stewart
2025 - Kate Stewart New Work
Kate Stewart
Variety of trapeze works,
Steel tube, wool, metal blind cord, metal clothing mesh, garden plant stand dimensions variable
2025
- Fiona Morgan New Work
Fiona Morgan
Acrylic on canvas
205Fiona Morgan
Acrylic on canvas, on cardboard tube and builders twine
205
