How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use! As though to breathe were life. - Alfred Tennyson (Ulysses) Ingrid Morley lives and works under the shadow of tall pine trees near Oberon, NSW. Here in this place of extremes in temperature and light, forestry and nature, mountains and caves, she creates monumental sculptural work from steel that surrounds her studio. The last few years have been a time of upheaval and loss for Morley. Bushfires, a studio fire and the death of a very close friend in an accident have disrupted the world around her. Her most recent solo exhibition, The past is just behind, includes recent sculptures and drawings that have emerged in response to this period of destruction. "The drawings and sculpture have acted as restorative pieces for me. They are an expression of joy after a period of grief and the ensuing struggle to find the momentum to move forward." Embracing absurdity and a profound experience of loss, Morley seeks through these new works to create a personal language that makes sense of disintegration. Part machine, part figure the new sculptures and drawings appear as relics from the future. In material and form they are linked to the past, yet Morley has reimagined the industrial shapes into works that are of the past and the future. In this duality the works are familiar and uncanny, with any prior function usurped by abstraction. Of this approach Morley states, "They are very much trying to find a way from the past and finding something completely fresh. it is almost amputating the past, cutting it off. Even though it doesn't, because you carry it anyway." Morley's rejection of past systems and meaning shares the sentiment of Dada, an art movement which embraced absurdity in response to the horrors of World War I. The past is just behind is the only thing that makes sense. In her exploration of a new world view, Morley began with a series of abstract drawings on handmade paper. Like an anamorphic alphabet, the drawings are part machine and body. Presented in a series, the black shapes warp and change. Viewed collectively, forms and patterns begin to emerge. For Morley they are an attempt to carve out meaning when other systems of knowledge and understanding have fallen away. |
From the soft matte black drawings Morley extends this language into large black sculptures that float, mounted on the wall. Twilight Fold and The past is just behind II are large steel works coated in a black matte shade. An expansion from the small, intimate drawings, the large three-dimensional forms of the sculptures exude a commanding presence. Morley deftly moves from drawings, to folded card maquettes and translates the clean angular lines into folded steel. Unlike the burnished steel, ochre tones and industrial red and yellows of her other sculptures, Twilight Fold (2023) holds no marks of its former use. Large and monolithic - it is a new language formatted in bold. A pivotal sculpture in the development of this series is The past is just behind (2023). The steel sculpture is bodily with curved limbs, which are then juxtaposed with origami-esque angular folds, industrial yellow paint and burnished interruptions on the steel. Sitting atop three legs, the sculpture appears to be leaning forward about to move, whilst simultaneously rooted to the spot. In this movement of limbo there deeply human experience of uncertainty at play.
In the process of developing The past is just behind Morley worked across incremental scales. Working first with card she created a small maquette, followed by a larger steel maquette at 1.3 metres high. This then evolved into a monumental sculpture of 2.6 metres high. The gradation of scale was critical to the imagining and evolution of the work. "I just thought I have to make a statement about being alive. And I made this work the scale that I thought it should be." The industrial history of the materials are reminiscent in the rusted steel, industrial rubber and red and yellow paints used by Morley. However, she interrupts any uniformity of colour by working the surface to add further depth and texture to the work. Using an angle grinder she has worked back into the surface. "I wanted to break the purity of the colour. It's about the workman-like nature of the machine. It breaks that transition to figurative, it pulls back into the machine." Memory and time are etched into the patina and surface of the material, as Morley states, "It's a raw language of work".
Whilst working on this series the quote from Alfred Tennyson's Ulysses resonated with Morley. Working with collected materials such as steel, wood and industrial rubber, she has chopped and rewelded, distorting the meaning and transformed them. Rather than "rust unburnished", the new sculptures bearing marks and forms of the past are repurposed for the future. The past is just behind is full of promise, as Morley states, "I feel as if I am holding a new beginning".
Lucy Stranger
Curator
Orange Regional Gallery, 2023
In the process of developing The past is just behind Morley worked across incremental scales. Working first with card she created a small maquette, followed by a larger steel maquette at 1.3 metres high. This then evolved into a monumental sculpture of 2.6 metres high. The gradation of scale was critical to the imagining and evolution of the work. "I just thought I have to make a statement about being alive. And I made this work the scale that I thought it should be." The industrial history of the materials are reminiscent in the rusted steel, industrial rubber and red and yellow paints used by Morley. However, she interrupts any uniformity of colour by working the surface to add further depth and texture to the work. Using an angle grinder she has worked back into the surface. "I wanted to break the purity of the colour. It's about the workman-like nature of the machine. It breaks that transition to figurative, it pulls back into the machine." Memory and time are etched into the patina and surface of the material, as Morley states, "It's a raw language of work".
Whilst working on this series the quote from Alfred Tennyson's Ulysses resonated with Morley. Working with collected materials such as steel, wood and industrial rubber, she has chopped and rewelded, distorting the meaning and transformed them. Rather than "rust unburnished", the new sculptures bearing marks and forms of the past are repurposed for the future. The past is just behind is full of promise, as Morley states, "I feel as if I am holding a new beginning".
Lucy Stranger
Curator
Orange Regional Gallery, 2023