171. Morwenna Morrison - Flights of Fancy: Hermes

2026
Oil on wood panel
15cm x 20cm

Morwenna Morrison’s work explores the porous boundaries between past and present, myth and memory, psychological depth and painterly surface. Through collage-like compositions, layering, and juxtaposition, her paintings examine what endures across time, what is lost, and how identity is recognised and reconstructed across centuries and shifting cultural contexts.

Drawing on historical imagery, symbolism, and fragments of narrative, Morrison creates richly atmospheric works that exist between figuration and dream logic. Her paintings often hold a tension between intimacy and theatricality, where references from art history, folklore, and personal memory are brought into dialogue through painterly accumulation and disruption. Surface becomes both a physical and psychological space, carrying traces of revision, concealment, and revelation.

Morrison completed a BA (Hons) in Fine Art at Exeter College of Art and Design, UK (1985–1988), following a Foundation course at Falmouth Art College, UK (1984–1985).

Solo exhibitions include Play-Time at Arusha Gallery, London (2025); Vanitas at Arusha Gallery, Edinburgh (2023); Fixing Eyes with the Unseen at Arusha Gallery, Edinburgh (2021); Time Will Tell at Arusha Gallery, Edinburgh (2019); and The Eternal Return at Arusha Gallery, Edinburgh (2018).

Selected group exhibitions include the London Art Fair with Beaux Arts, London (2026); By Imagination We Live at Beaux Arts, Bath (2026); Strange Magic at Andelli Art, Wells (2025); Bucolia II at Blue Shop Galleries, London (2025); Reverb at Florence Trust, London (2025); Saatchi Art Fair with Beaux Arts, London (2025); KunstRAI with KochXBos, Amsterdam (2025); the RWA Open Exhibition, Bristol (2024); At Cross Purposes touring Aberystwyth University, Oriel Môn, Queen Street Studios Gallery Belfast, and Elysium Gallery Swansea (2023); the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition (2023); the Inaugural Group Exhibition at Salon 21, New York (2023); Cruel Intentions at Arusha Gallery, London (2021); the Lynn Painter-Stainers Competition at Mall Galleries (2018); Just Putting It Out There at James Freeman Gallery, London (2018); The Dark Tide at Arusha Gallery (2017); The Amorist at Arusha Gallery, Edinburgh (2017); and the London Art Fair with Arusha Gallery (2017).