Mali Morris: Returning at Hatton Gallery
The largest public survey to date of work by British artist Mali Morris RA (b. North Wales, 1945) opens at the Hatton Gallery this September. To celebrate her remarkable career spanning half a century and on the eve of her 80th birthday, Morris returns to the city where it all began. Mali Morris: Returning opens on 14 September 2024 and runs until 11 January 2025.
Mali Morris arrived at the Fine Art Department of Newcastle University in 1963 on the renowned ‘First Year Basic Course’, led by Richard Hamilton. She was awarded the prestigious Hatton Scholarship and, after graduating, went on to achieve her MFA under Terry Frost at Reading University. She embarked on her career in the early 1970s and has gone on to present over 40 solo exhibitions and participate in numerous group shows in the UK and overseas.
Morris is best is known for her use of fresh, vibrant colour, her paintings noted for their luminosity and translucence, characterised by a lightness of touch. This show features around 40 key works spanning 45 years. It traces the development of her painting from the early gestural and stained pieces, evolving over the years into more painterly geometric layering, as seen in works such as Impeller/Yellow II, 2024.
The late Phyllida Barlow spoke of Morris as having ‘extraordinary power as an artist of great authenticity and profound creativity’.
Morris herself describes being beguiled by what she finds mysterious about pictorial structures, ‘which take in the world, are related to it but have their own language of light, space and boundary…’.
There is a consistency in these very varied works, in their wit and a sensuous enjoyment of what an exploration of colour and space can achieve in abstract painting. Morris’ work is held in numerous public collections, from the Arts Council Collection and Fitzwilliam Cambridge to the Museum of Wales, Cardiff. She was elected to the Royal Academy in 2010 and in 2022 she was commissioned to design 33 banners to hang above Bond Street during the summer of that year.
Mali Morris: Returning is co-curated by Sam Cornish and Zoe Allen.
To coincide with the Hatton exhibition, Newcastle’s Gallagher & Turner are showing Morris & Lewis / REAL WORK: Paintings and Sculpture from 13 September until 2 November. Mali Morris and Stephen Lewis have their studios in South London, and they live in Greenwich. This will be their fourth show together in their partnership of 40 years.
Pictured: Mali Morris at Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, early 1970s winner of Pernod Northern Arts Prize
