Rachel Morrissey
Painter based in Dorchester, Massachusetts
ABOUT
Rachel Morrissey was born in the late 80s in Dorchester, Massachusetts and grew up in the Connecticut suburbs. Morrissey received her MFA in May 2016 from Massachusetts College of Art and Design. She earned a Post-Baccalaureate degree from The School of the Museum of Fine Arts in 2014 and a BFA in Studio Art from Indiana University in 2009. Morrissey currently lives and works in her home studio in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Rachel Morrissey’s newest group of narrative paintings give form and context to an invisible struggle with mental health, motherhood, fertility, pregnancy and daily life. Her paintings contain reoccurring imagery of unknowable strange plants as romantic associations for motherhood and fruitfulness, while weeds and vines represent the tension of her ongoing battle with anxiety. This playful balance of colorful imagery evokes seductive properties one moment and strangling vulnerability in the next. The human form is clearly not depicted but its presence is noted through motifs of the body. Morrissey creates these paintings through the lens and history of botanical art with a nod to childhood bedtime stories. She hopes to seduce the viewer into this seemingly colorful, jubilant world, leading them to understand that all is not what it is seen above the surface. The motifs and patterns oscillate along the continuum of her experience as a mother finding exuberance, love and joy at one end and utter despair at the other. Morrissey’s work continues to ‘bear fruit’ as she chronicles and interprets the usual and unusual curveballs of life and motherhood through art and imagery. She hopes others will see themselves in her fanciful imaginings.
Instagram: @rachelmorrisseyart
Website: rachelmo.com