VR Morrison "Paintings from Montpellier France"

VR Morrison

“Paintings From Montpellier France”

Official Opening Friday 8^th December 2006

6:00 – 8:00pm

VR Morrison is an Australian contemporary figurative painter who lives and works in the South of France. Born in 1976, Sydney Australia of Scottish, Samoan and Chinese heritage, VR Morrison left school at the age of 15 to study fashion design. She immediately began making and selling her own clothing designs while working as a freelance fashion designer and editorial make-up artist in the Sydney fashion industry. Always eager to learn new skills she developed a passion for animation and photography, which led to self directed and formal study in these areas.

In 2001 Morrison enrolled at art college where she began to practice painting devoting her time to the relentless study of the ‘master’ painters such as Caravaggio and Ingres. Combining her skills in fashion, photography and animation, she creates highly stylized images of women in oil paint on canvas producing works imbued with drama and theatre. Morrison says, "I take my inspiration from some of history's great artists such as Caravaggio, Gentileschi also fashion icons such as Coco Channel, Cecil Beaton and Guy Bourdin. I am fascinated by the manner in which these artists captured the world around them, and draw upon this to articulate my own world. Concerned with detail and design, I make costumes, build sets, cast characters and compose the scene.” VR Morrison’s women are heroines and icons for a contemporary society.

Morrison’s highly realistic lavish paintings draw inspiration from classical painting traditions and allegorical subject matter and are mediated through the artist’s interest in popular culture, which ultimately lends her paintings a fresh, contemporary edge and an often palpable, portentous air of tension. The artist comments, “It is my intention to paint the illusion of life through understanding the scientific basis of how life reveals itself - the way light reacts to skin, the dynamics of drapery or form, and the physics of human movement. My paintings follow enduring themes including betrayal, beauty, violence, envy, and femininity."

VR Morrison’s work is held in many private and public collections including the BHP Billiton Corporate Collection. In 2005 she was a finalist in the prestigious Metro Art Award where she won the Peoples Choice Award.

Alison Kubler