GEORGE MORL
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Platform 2016
Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK
04 August - 25 September 2016
04 August - 25 September 2016
Group show at Turner Contemporary Gallery featuring Morl's installation 'Precious Boys' (2016).
Information
Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK
04 August - 25 September 2016
Group Exhibition
www.turnercontemporary.org
︎Artist Press Release
George Morl is pleased to have been selected for Platform 2016 at Turner Contemporary Gallery, a group exhibition showcasing emerging artists as part of the CVAN Platform Graduate Award. The award supports graduate professional development and nurtures new artistic talent.
Morl’s practice uses seductive industrial and domestic materials to construct representations of psychological episodes, addressing often hidden experiences of adolescence such as autism, mental health, sexuality, gender identity, and violence.
For the exhibition, Morl presents Precious Boys #2 (2016), an installation that places the viewer within a striking, physical “nursery rhyme.” The work consists of gloss-coated plaster sculptures resting on a mass of pigmented salt and sugar. The alum-based solutions used in the process recall both Victorian children’s pain relief medicines and modern treatments for HIV patients. Morl describes the installation as “a contemporary vigil, or rather a nursery rhyme, telling the story of young men who are emotionally restrained and suffering from mental illness.”
The work is informed by the romanticised portrayals of youth in the paintings of Francisco de Goya and Joseph Wright of Derby’s depictions of boys blowing up bladders. Made from plaster casts of clinical consumables, the sculptures reference the historical use of animal bladder linings in medical practice. In this context, the work contrasts the innocence and curiosity of childhood play with contemporary adolescent experiences of mental health struggle and self-awareness.
Decorated in lustrous industrial materials, the forms suggest a body seeking affection amid fragile mental suffering. They reflect on social perceptions of masculinity and how these pressures can lead to emotional isolation. Precious Boys confronts contemporary problems of masculinity, acting as a memorial—like gravestones—for young men.
Precious Boys#2, 2018, Installation View Turner Contemporary, Image © George Morl
Morl’s practice uses seductive industrial and domestic materials to construct representations of psychological episodes, addressing often hidden experiences of adolescence such as autism, mental health, sexuality, gender identity, and violence.
For the exhibition, Morl presents Precious Boys #2 (2016), an installation that places the viewer within a striking, physical “nursery rhyme.” The work consists of gloss-coated plaster sculptures resting on a mass of pigmented salt and sugar. The alum-based solutions used in the process recall both Victorian children’s pain relief medicines and modern treatments for HIV patients. Morl describes the installation as “a contemporary vigil, or rather a nursery rhyme, telling the story of young men who are emotionally restrained and suffering from mental illness.”
The work is informed by the romanticised portrayals of youth in the paintings of Francisco de Goya and Joseph Wright of Derby’s depictions of boys blowing up bladders. Made from plaster casts of clinical consumables, the sculptures reference the historical use of animal bladder linings in medical practice. In this context, the work contrasts the innocence and curiosity of childhood play with contemporary adolescent experiences of mental health struggle and self-awareness.
Decorated in lustrous industrial materials, the forms suggest a body seeking affection amid fragile mental suffering. They reflect on social perceptions of masculinity and how these pressures can lead to emotional isolation. Precious Boys confronts contemporary problems of masculinity, acting as a memorial—like gravestones—for young men.
Precious Boys#2, 2018, Installation View Turner Contemporary, Image © George Morl
Selected Exhibition Images
