London-based artist Annie Morris has first Asian solo exhibition in Shanghai
An outdoor sculpture by London-based artist Annie Morris at the Fosun Foundation Shanghai
London-based artist Annie Morris is having her first large-scale research solo exhibition in Asia with "Hope from a Thin Line" at the Fosun Foundation Shanghai.
The exhibition features sculptures, tapestries, and paintings dating back to 2012, offering an extensive overview of Morris’s vivid, lyrical work. The exhibition also includes a site-specific, gallery-spanning mural on which drawings and tapestries are installed, creating a dynamic formal dialogue that evokes notions of ephemerality and the metaphorical afterlife.
Using different media, Morris interweaves explorations of personal experience with those of line, surface, and volume.
A remarkable installation from Morris’s “Stacks” series (2018-2024) is part of her "Hope from a Thin Line" exhibition.
A remarkable installation from Morris’s “Stacks” series (2018-2024) is assembled, including the tallest pigment sculpture the artist has completed to date, at a monumental 5.3 meters tall.
These sculptures, resembling totems, consist of spheres in various colors — such as lavender, oxblood red, ocher, and viridian — that seem precariously perched on one another, capturing a moment just before potential collapse.
These vibrant, stacked forms represent Morris's personal exploration of loss. After experiencing a stillbirth in 2012, Morris started creating oval shapes reminiscent of eggs and her own form during pregnancy. She crafted these shapes from foam and plaster, mounting them on steel frames as if to keep them suspended.
After experiencing a stillbirth in 2012, Morris started creating oval shapes reminiscent of eggs and her own form during pregnancy.
This visual metaphor reflects a nuanced understanding of happiness and peril — how joy is often shadowed by the risk of falling apart. Morris's work speaks to a universal truth of human vulnerability and the transient nature of existence, with each sculpture serving as a tribute to lives once lived.
For Morris, "repetition" is both a fundamental component and a strategic approach to her process. She often revisits the same form or idea until it transforms into something focused and abstract.
In this exhibition, tapestries and paintings feature a recurring motif: the "Flower Woman," a woman whose face is depicted as a flower and also serves as a composite portrait by the artist. The fragile, ephemeral petals evoke the transient beauty of life. The Flower Woman, expressionless, conveys emotion through Morris's dynamic and impulsive lines. These figures are simultaneously full and strong, enchanting and maternal, steadfast and fragile, hinting at the complexity of femininity.
A sculpture of Morris's signature “Flower Woman” captures the same dynamic lines found in her drawings.
Like many artists, Morris maintains a daily practice of drawing, a habit that has become second nature to her. She describes this as a form of automatic writing, a diary of emotions, ideas, and images.
Her tapestry works begin with line drawings, from which Morris creates astonishing effects reminiscent of painting, pastel, and charcoal using silk threads and her signature stitching technique. The thick strokes recall the texture of lipstick, enhancing the complexity of the feminine concepts in her work.
Through a labor-intensive and almost compulsive creation process, Morris produces what she calls "thread paintings" in tapestry form. These works, with their expressive and spontaneously structured compositions, reclaim the techniques of handicraft and folk art in a disruptive manner, addressing themes of anxiety, female identity, and death.
Her signature Flower Woman also appears in two life-sized steel sculptures from 2018 and 2023, with a third from 2023 featuring a reptilian head. Each sculpture, rendered in vivid shades of ultramarine blue, turquoise, and cadmium red, captures the same dynamic lines found in Morris's drawings. These imaginative figures blend seamlessly with ancient and celestial shapes in the unique mural Morris has crafted for the Fosun Foundation, displayed on the museum's third floor.
Morris's sculptures surround one of her paintings.
The artist turns to endless experimentation with color and form as a means to manage her emotions and overcome challenges. Initially, her repetitive sculpting of oval shapes was a response to despair, particularly evident in her "Stacks" series. However, over time, these creations have evolved beyond therapeutic outlets or means for emotional release into a deliberate quest for endless creative possibilities. The seemingly solid, vibrant sculptures are intricately carved from light foam, embodying a sense of indomitable energy.
This transformation - from the tangible and intangible losses of life to a profound sense of hope, and from the act of artistic creation as a form of rebellion and vitality - is at the heart of Morris's works. It represents a relentless pursuit of crafting new experiences amidst inevitable fate and the mundanities of daily life, creating works that are alive with potential.
“This is the beginning of everything. Let us create these shapes. Let the line come alive in these towering ‘stacks’,” she said.
Exhibition info:
Date: Through June 2
Hours: Tuesday to Sunday, 10am-6pm. Thursday and Saturday, 10am-8pm
Address: 600 Zhongshan Rd E2
