Print of The Month: June 2019
Mali Morris RA, Mardi Gras
Date: 2019
Size(cm unframed): 96 x 46
Technique: Screenprint
Materials: Somerset Soft White
300 gsm
Edition Size: 30
Over the years The Print Studio Cambridge has produced many prints with Mali Morris RA . Primarily a painter, but fascinated by how her usual ways of working can be translated into the medium of print, Mali again collaborated with Kip Gresham at The Print Studio, earlier in 2019, to produce Mardi Gras. Featuring in this year’s RA Summer Exhibition, which runs until 12th August, the print can be found in Gallery VII, curated by fellow RA Anne Desmet.
In fitting with her practice, the print began with a brush in hand. Deep black shapes were created using the application of viscous paint to paper. They balance on each other’s corners, and the challenge was to make them seem precariously piled up, but not collapsing – and for the column to ultimately have balance, or poise. Coloured dots and circles were added, to animate the white spaces, but these were gradually removed, with just one red shape remaining – it was enough to create the tension needed.
Mali Morris: Painting (The Royal Academy, 2019)
As discussed in an article in the RA Magazine in 2014, the artist acknowledges the influence of Matisse, describing the ‘chromatic orchestration’ [1] in his work that can undoubtedly be seen in much of her own, both in painting and printmaking. Colour is of primary interest, as is the pictorial and spatial possibility in translucency and opacity. The recent monograph (pictured above), Mali Morris: Painting, published by the RA in March, with a text by Sam Cornish, gives a detailed account of these developments in her work.
Learning more about the art of layering in printmaking has sometimes opened up new processes for her work. Since making prints such as ‘Bridge’ and ‘Crossings’ in 2014, she went on to create paintings that develop, in painting terms, some of the discoveries made through her collaboration with The Print Studio.
Similar in style to Mardi Gras, Toussaint I - IV (below) are available to buy from us at the Studio. These four silk screen prints, to be seen individually or in any combination, are in editions of 30. Their titles are a kind of homage to the American musician Allen Toussaint, whose music Morris first heard as a young art student in the 1960s.
Posted by Karina Sawyer, in collaboration with Mali Morris RA