Jessie Morgan’s artwork captivates and lures the viewer into her richly layered textures and surfaces of paint. The layers emerge from an organic depth and reference aspects of nature on, above and below the surface. The repetitive marks rhythmically evoke natural systems, and simultaneously reveal a macroscopic and microscopic view. Jessie Morgan’s paintings encourage observation and inspire contemplation.

REVIEWS
“Morgan’s work is strong, elemental and captivating.”
– Artscope Magazine, October 2009, Taylor M. Polites

“Lush clouds of color sift across the dimpled surfaces of Jessie Morgan’s paintings on canvas, all titled ‘Waking Up’. These, too, luxuriate in tone and texture, in layers emerging from organic depths.

For Morgan, this layer is not an opaque shield, but a flickering veil of luminous color. Multiple coats of paint have been built up and scraped off until the final abstraction attains the misty shimmer of light on water. Dots of color pool and break up to expose previous tones just below the undulating surface. Pale blue dances over reds and yellows. Ochre meanders over shallow ridges. Snowy clouds drift like fog on a ground of golden veins.

All the paintings in ‘Waking Up’ tantalize with textures that remain almost invisible from certain angles and then pop out from others. ‘Skin’ in these works has a more universal meaning than simply human flesh. As rendered in paint, it is the appearance of any aspect of nature – from a misty breeze to a rippling pond. ‘Waking Up’ evokes a process of coursing through many levels before reaching the last one, and Morgan echoes this journey with her laborious technique.”
– The Boston Herald, January 2005, Joanne Silver

“The surface of her paintings (all titled ‘Waking Up’) is dense and alluring, like stratified waterfalls of color. Each is a rippled veil through which we glimpse other colors, other worlds. Morgan is a colorist. Her tones, and the way they interact, set off particular reactions: vulnerability or energy.”
– The Boston Globe, December 2004, Cate McQuaid

“Morgan’s surfaces are like seaweed, whole walls of it. Reticulated and striated, they seem to breathe in organic cellular life. Her colors are varied (off-shades of primaries, deep red, pale blues, hints of gold), and her titles suggest deeper, specific meanings.”
– Art New England, April/May 2005, Shawn Hill

“Jessie Morgan builds gesso ridges over the surface of her pieces, paints, then traces those ridges with pencil. The washes of tone feel ethereal, but the texture is like furrowed land.”
– The Boston Globe, July 2005, Cate McQuaid

EDUCATION   
1998     School of the Museum of Fine Arts,  Boston MA
Diploma
1991     Tufts University/School of the Museum of Fine Arts,  Boston MA
Bachelor of Fine Arts