{"id":23761,"date":"2013-11-06T11:57:57","date_gmt":"2013-11-06T17:57:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=23761"},"modified":"2023-12-29T09:07:23","modified_gmt":"2023-12-29T15:07:23","slug":"alexander-hraefn-morris-at-the-gittins-gallery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/alexander-hraefn-morris-at-the-gittins-gallery\/","title":{"rendered":"Palomin and the Raven: Alexander Hraefn Morris at the Gittins Gallery"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Alexander Hraefn Morris says he recognizes a spiritual presence within him, and we can see this expressed in one of the artist\u2019s more direct works of abstraction: \u201cIt Takes Note and Attempts to Understand\u201d is a 9 x 3 foot triptych that abstractly maps the Cottonwood Heights area Morris grew up in. A thick blue line across the canvas depicts a route frequently taken by Morris, and along it the artist has described, in verse, his search for a true companion.<\/p>\n

The triptych has overtly Taoist implications. The path Morris has chosen has progressed through a numberless series of choices along life\u2019s journey. Fascinatingly apropos of this progression are the piece\u2019s linear fragments, that are not just explicative formal details with acute stylization, but also represent crossroads at which choices must be made, turns taken: the entire Taoist reality is of a sudden utterly and completely altered only to be affected by the next fork in the road.<\/p>\n

Morris\u2019s own journey is still relatively fresh \u2014 earlier this year he graduated from the University of Utah with a BFA in drawing and painting \u2014 and already promising \u2014 his long piece \u201cRelease\u201d was selected by juror Meri DeCaria as \u201cBest of Show\u201d at the University\u2019s BFA exhibition in April; and, along with Kyle Odland, he was awarded the Howard Clark Scholarship, which provides the two artists with an exhibition at the University of Utah\u2019s Gittins Gallery November 14-December 16.<\/p>\n

The works Morris will be exhibiting at the Gittins show are powerfully expressive abstract narratives executed through a spiritual lens, the artist guided in all matters by substances of the spirit documented in paint. They are characterized by a stunningly fine abstract layering of paint, worked and reworked; colors in subtle gradations or tones; generalized areas of demarcated space and texture; line seemingly jutting from nowhere to nowhere. Everything to the most minor detail is used purposefully in an aesthetic that is structurally and spiritually bold and resonant of personal artistic intensity.<\/p>\n

Though fully appreciable for their aesthetic qualities of line, color and texture, Morris\u2019s works are also filled with an evocative if sometimes private symbolic quality. Though rough and sometimes barely delineated, these symbols reappear again and again in his pieces. They form a personal mythology that stretches back to Morris\u2019s youth, when friends called him wolf-bird, an ecologist\u2019s term for the\u00a0raven,\u00a0the predator that\u00a0the wolf would follow to its prey. The image of a slightly anthropomorphic bird appears and reappears in Morris\u2019s paintings, sometimes as multiples, other times transformed to hazy lines or blotches of paint.<\/p>\n

This raven figure joins another recurrent element, an \u201cempathetic guardian\u201d the artist identifies as Palomin, and which is a pastiche of ancient Egyptian and Judeo-Christian deities. It is a spiritual other to the artist\u2019s figure of the Raven, representing both a protective or guiding spirit, as well as the figure of the artist\u2019s wife, his true companion.<\/p>\n

A prime example of these elemental, conceptual and symbolic qualities can be found forming a majestic symbiosis in \u201cHoarse Cries.\u201d The 4.5 x 3 foot work at first seems entirely cryptic and all that may be detected is the crude and rough form that looks as if it may or may not be referential \u2014 this is a pervasive quality of Morris\u2019 work, as the deepest secrets are found from within. As these are discovered and as one finds oneself talking with Morris, there is fantastically no limit to the depth of meaning these crude elements can reach.<\/p>\n

Familiarity with Morris\u2019s work helps one detect the form of the Raven at the left with its upper body and neck taking the base of the canvas while the neck arches upwards with just the tip of the left wing visible, marking the difference between the static and the violent. This is no calm and stoic raven but one with its beak gaping wide, a stream issuing forth from this immense beak like a funnel of fire.<\/p>\n

In the ferocity of this mass, ferocious enough to make a raven\u2019s throat coarse, is not fire but language, the language of the Raven, the language of Morris\u2019s \u201cother,\u201d a language of a different space and place only known by the Raven.\u00a0 But! His cries are stopped short. A rough wall delineating a void of the lightest gray infused with the subtlest tint of blue stops his coarse cries. Is it, though, a void or is it the space of Palomin, the space of purity that fuses with the Raven\u2019s cries making them pure?<\/p>\n

Here is a narrative of such refinement as to counter the roughness of the surface material and make manifest the traversed distance and life attainment on the Raven\u2019s experiential journey as it binds with Palomin. The rawness is an oblique symbolism as it is a means to an ends, beginning with the blotched and sketchy raven with spills and spoils covering it, the universe that surrounds it, one that is densely opaque yet allowing for the dissolution of masses. The language that issues forth from the gaping mouth is just this and Morris has symbol by symbol inscribed an impromptu language of his own, which is at once the Raven\u2019s also.<\/p>\n

Structurally, Alexander Hraefn Morris\u2019s paintings are finely executed works full of wonderful abstract qualities like form, line, texture and color. In addition, fused with elements of his unique symbolic mythology, they become multi-layered multi-dimensional narratives full of spiritual elements. The stories told may be inspired by the artist\u2019s own life journey, but they resonate to include broader issues of human experience, making them both very personal and broadly universal.<\/p>\n

Alexander Hraefn Morris\u2019s works will be on exhibit at the\u00a0University of Utah\u2019s Gittins Gallery<\/a>November 14th-December 16th. You can view more of the artist\u2019s work at\u00a0www.alexanderhraefnmorris.com<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alexander Hraefn Morris says he recognizes a spiritual presence within him, and we can see this expressed in one of the artist\u2019s more direct works of abstraction: \u201cIt Takes Note and Attempts to Understand\u201d is a 9 x 3 foot triptych that abstractly maps the Cottonwood Heights area […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":850,"featured_media":23762,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,14],"tags":[1729,1730],"class_list":["post-23761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibition_reviews","category-visual_arts","tag-alexander-hraefn-morris","tag-gittins-gallery"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/blogmorris.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-05 02:31:57","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/850"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23761"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73480,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23761\/revisions\/73480"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}