Julia Morison Headcase, 21 2015. Glazed stoneware, paint, tacks. Courtesy of the artist
Julia Morison Headcase, 43 2018. Glazed stoneware. Courtesy of the artist
Julia Morison Headcase, 27 2015. Glazed and painted stoneware. Courtesy of the artist and Two Rooms, Auckland
This exhibition is now closed
An installation of seven small hexagonal rooms and 100 ceramic heads, each distinctly different from the next, by one of Ōtautahi Christchurch’s most inventive artists
Modelled on a hat-maker’s block, each head is made distinctly different from the next by the addition of exaggerated features, peculiar appendages and uneasy textures. An excess of production, a riot of form, an assembly of strange types, Headcase is a playfully surreal work. Bearing only a cursory relationship to the human head, we nevertheless can’t help but imagine Morison’s mutated heads coming alive, what strange new senses and ways of understanding the world they might reveal…
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Date:
23 February – 14 July 2019 -
Curator:
Lara Strongman -
Exhibition number:
1057
Related
Exhibition
![Julia Morison: Head[case]](/media/cache/de/88/de88d73a69e40a8ec3368b62e2d68f52.jpg)
Julia Morison: Head[case]
23 February – 14 July 2019
An installation of seven small hexagonal rooms and 100 ceramic heads, each distinctly different from the next, by one of Ōtautahi Christchurch’s most inventive artists
Exhibition
Julia Morison: Meet me on the other side
10 February – 25 March 2012
Julia Morison's evocative post-quake sculptures and 'liqueurfaction' paintings return to Christchurch for a special showing in a gallery space overlooking the inner-city 'red zone'.
Exhibition
Julia Morison: a loop around a loop
21 July – 23 October 2006
Sensual, complex and arresting, the work of Julia Morison is an intellectual order made physical.
Interview
Accidents and Variations
Lara Strongman: Let’s talk about the process of making the works for this exhibition. Can you describe how you produced them?
Julia Morison: I’ve never actually made ceramics before. I read Edmund de Waal’s The Hare with Amber Eyes, which is about a netsuke set that is passed through several generations. De Waal is a ceramicist and he talks in this book about objects and porcelain in such a visceral way—basically he seduced me into picking up a ball of clay and playing with it. For a long time I haven’t had the use of my hands [because of arthritis], so I thought that playing with clay might actually help strengthen them.