Joel Morrison

Joel Morrison was born in Seattle, Washington in 1976. He received a BA in English Literature at Central Washington University, and an MFA in sculpture at the Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, CA.

Morrison’s sculptures engage a myriad of theoretical ventures, juxtaposing various genres and processes within the confines of a single work. Morrison uses found and everyday objects to create a unique and sharp sense of tension in the surfaces of the sculptures he creates. He demonstrates his technical ability to manipulate and harmonize these chosen objects—which have included neck braces, wasp nests, urinal refreshers, and bullets—with works that range from neo-classical Greek busts to grotesque, amorphous forms. Cast in stainless steel and highly polished, they form a reinvented dystopia, where mundane objects are glorified and classified into themes of Pop, Surrealism and Classicism.

One constant in Morrison's body of work is a dynamic conversation between his own brand of humor and the canonized body of art history. Tomb (2012), describes a wall hanging tableau covered with a cargo blanket, the stitched pattern of which mimics the geometric shapes from Frank Stella’s famed monolithic work, Getty Tomb, 1959. Where Stella’s rejection of the figurative is finite, Morrison’s hint at an obfuscated canvas holds limitless possibility. Encased in an unblemished bright nickel surface that abstracts all that it reflects, the facade envelops the color and shape from the world in real time in its ever-changing surface.