Review: The peculiar appeal of Rebecca Morris’ paintings, on view in L.A.
April 20, 2018
By: Mark G. Harris
An artist’s gallery. We don’t know what we’ll see while we are in the gallery — it could be some really weird and wonderful exhibition that will dazzle us with its weird and wonderfulness. An artist’s gallery. Sometimes art galleries serve as a kind of stage where artists perform and have their art show to the world. One such gallery that we’ve long admired is Rebecca Morris’ Rebecca Morris Gallery in Los Angeles. Here, she showcases her recent body of work: surreal, political and darkly humorous.
Her “The Dark Days of Light” exhibition is currently on view at this gallery, where you’ll find surreal paintings including “The Hologram of Death” as well as the darkly comic and surrealist “Kissing the Moon” and “The End of the World in Venice.”
How did you decide that this was going to be your most important body of work?
I started out in high school as a dark-suited clown in the school play, and gradually my career took over. In my teens I was making music so I wasn’t the only one. I had a band with four other friends, and I decided I wanted to get my own recording studio. I started making music, and my life was changing. I was getting more involved in the community. So, I started going to art galleries and seeing artists, and I knew that I wanted to be an artist. So, over the course of three years in college I worked in every studio in town, and with every person who wanted a studio, and created an incredible portfolio.
You’re a part of the L.A. arts community; why is this community important to you?
I find that what interests me most about Los Angeles is the people here. The diversity of people is what’s so interesting and exciting. In Los Angeles you can be anyone if you want to be. You can be whatever your soul wants you to be. So, the fact that that diversity exists here just makes our lives more interesting,