Mali Morris
'Plural On Red'

Acrylic on canvas
40 x 51 cm

Mali Morris was born in North Wales in 1945. She studied at the Univerities of Newcastle upon Tyne and Reading 1963-70. Her first major one-person exhibition was at the Ikon Gallery Birmingham 1979. In the 1980s and 1990s she showed regularly with Nicola Jacobs Gallery and Francis Graham Dixon Gallery London; among her many group exhibitions in the UK and overseas were John Moores 12 and 16, the Whitechapel Open, 'The Discerning Eye' Mall Galleries London and Williamson Art Gallery Birkenhead 1991-92, and 'British Abstract Art' I and III Flowers East Gallery London 1994-96. Her most recent one-person shows were at Gallery Saoh, Nihombashi, Tokyo 2000 and Angel Row Gallery Nottingham 2002.

"When I’m inside a painting (making or looking) I am always interested in the specific light which comes from a particular colour, and how it implies space. I aim for a simplicity of organisation, which moves into complexity when looked at and then back again to simplicity. Amongst other things, I want to make colour achieve luminosity in unfamiliar ways.

My recent paintings have colour coming through colour, sometimes a clearing away of the surface to show light and colour beneath - light made through touch. Forms frankly reveal their making, and seem poised to depict, but don't. The images are singular and centralised, never quite symmetrical, and various in their identities and associations.

The paintings I love or am in awe of I'm sure must be an influence. I like the uncomplicated layout of some portraits, and still-lives with single objects or small groups: so much can flow from that."