Petrona Morrison

 

Petrona Morrison. 

A lover of childhood drawing, multidisciplinary artist Petrona Morrison was born in Manchester, Jamaica in 1954. She obtained a BFA summa cum laude at McMaster College in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada in 1976 and an MFA in painting from Howard University in Washington D.C. (at the time traveling to Kenya) in the 1980’s. She divided time between the United States and Jamaica before deciding to stay in Jamaica and teach at Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts— Jamaica’s first art school. 

Sanctuary/Space (for me), assemblage/mixed media sculpture, 1995, National Gallery of Jamaica. 

Altarpiece I & II, sculpture, 1991, National Gallery of Jamaica collection. 

Morrison began creating assemblage sculptures in the 1990’s. Partly influenced by various travels to Africa (particularly Kenya and South Africa) and the Caribbean, masks and relics of the diaspora poured into her earlier work of natural, free flowing forms. These long, simple structures contain other elements showcasing spiritual, ancestral ties much in the manner of Jamaican artist Buseje Bailey. 

Morrison’s latest subject matter slightly breaks away from the personal and intimate towards science, anthropology, and sociology. Her various series on ID/DNA coding focuses heavily on the chemical makeup of Black bodies, bridging her data findings against individual faces, repeated. 

The selfie series is a remarkable video project collaboration with theatre actress, Rachael Allen. Morrison’s closeups on Allen’s facial expressions redefine the ways of engaging Black women, a dark skinned, natural hair wearing Black woman. Several stills highlight the contours of her smile, the brightness of her eyes, her present hands touching her face, all appearing to have an inviting connotation, an obsessiveness with her own flesh. Others find her in vulnerable, contemplative moments or catch a seductive allure meant to entice viewers— an enthralling action that generally moves the contemporary age of selfie culture, the celebration of human hunger for being desired, being liked for our faces alone. 

Cross-Section IV (from the Mapping Series), digital media, 11” x 17,” 2017. 

ID Series I, digital media, 2019.

About Petrona Morrison- New Works (September 14-October 5, 2019) shown at 10A West King’s Road House pop up in Kingston, Morrison stated, “my body of work evolved from my investigations into representations of self through the photographic image, the “selfie.” The investigation continued with a series of “portraits” which are intended to raise questions about the nature of internal and external representation, and reflect ongoing concerns in my work about genetics, personal experience, and their relationship to the construction of “self.” 

The underlying topography of the body is explored to reveal individual markers, mediated by genetics and environment. The skin, as exterior, is juxtaposed with objects/DNA/code in a process of “mapping.” The Topography series presents the body in the context of a broader discussion of “our place,” as part of an “unknowable” continuum.”

In a very thorough assessment of Morrison’s latest work, curator Veerle Poupeye shared, “ a key question explored by Petrona Morrison’s recent work is how we are positioned and perceived by our representations, those we create ourselves and those who are captured or imposed by others and by society – from the conventional ones, such as the photographic (self-)portrait, to those images that delve into the microscopic inner structures of our DNA or, on a macro-level, our position in the social and physical environment. Some of the works in the exhibition include actual portraits, but all are “portraits” in a broader sense. They engage with, to borrow a term which has gained currency in Caribbean literature recently, the cartographies of contemporary life, with how societies and systems survey, interpret, and locate individuals and social groups, and with how individuals, in turn, navigate that terrain and the perceptions that result from it, while negotiating their own sense of self.”

Installation view of Selfie, DVCAI (Diaspora Vibe Cultural Arts Incubator). 

Selfie, video still.

Selfie, video still II. 

Morrison has been an artist-in-residence at Studio Museum Harlem in New York City, New York, Contemporary Caribbean Arts (CCA) in Port of Spain, Trinidad, and at the Bag Factory Artists Studio in Johannesburg, South Africa. She has won awards such as the Silver and Gold Musgrave Medals by the Institute of Jamaica. Her work has been exhibited at the Jamaica Biennial, the National Gallery of Jamaica in Kingston, Jamaica, Havana, Cuba, Studio Museum in Harlem and the Bronx Museum— both in New York City, New York, and the Bemis Center of Contemporary Art in Omaha, Nebraska. 

Petrona Morrison receiving Jamaica's Gold Musgrave Medal on October 22, 2014. 

Smiling honored Morrison. 

Morrison currently lives and works in Kingston, Jamaica, having retired in 2014 as Director at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts.

Of that in Tallawah Magazine, Morrison said, “I have a lot of ideas [in my head] that I want to try and get done, especially in installation. I don't want to wait another ten years to act on these ideas because physically I might not be able to be doing all of that."