"Hobbs is gesturing toward broader commentaries through open-ended inquiries, avoidant of easily legible or parochial narratives. This pursuit however is not to be abstruse but, instead, to resist the bland demystification that occurs in didacticism, in being explained and fully understood. Instead, in extending equivalence beyond visible relationships, Hobbs offers a space to wonder, “what exactly is this?” all the while feeling, perhaps and fleetingly, exactly what that might be."
- Tess Wei, Artist, Assistant Professor of Art & List Gallery Assistant at Swarthmore College
Morgan Hobbs is an artist, curator and educator based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is a graduate of the Masters of Fine Arts program at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) and the Bachelor of Fine Arts program at the University of Central Missouri, where she studied painting and anthropology.
Hobbs has shown her own artwork both regionally and nationally, including at Satellite Projects in Miami, 33 Orchard in New York, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts museum, and Fleisher/Ollman Gallery in Philadelphia. She has presented her work and writing at the National Conference for Undergraduate Research in Ogden, Utah; the University of Central Missouri; Pennsylvania College of Art and Design; University of Massachusetts, Amherst; and more. In 2012 and 2020, she attended Vermont Studio Center as an Artist in Residence, and in 2020, she was awarded a Hemera Contemplative Fellowship.
(Excerpt): Elizabeth Johnson: Symbol Drawings 2 seems to explore the transformation of a fountain image as drawing, mosaic, and sculptural form. To you, does making the image feel more flat and less representational (and thus more iconic) imbue the piece with loss, the compression of time, or magic? I sense that painting or sculpting presumed shards of architecture, writing and symbols suggests that collective human endeavor changes but is never entirely lost, yet rather, ripening for reuse...
Morgan Hobbs: Shifting between a drawing, a mosaic, and a sculpture concerns permanence vs. impermanence. Surely the Romans felt their buildings were consequential, formidable, and permanent. But now they are ruins, and were covered with dirt from centuries of leaves, dust, and manure. Pieces of the ruins have been repurposed in St. Peter’s Basilica...I keep thinking of the adage, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” Human history is a snake eating its own tail.
“My work seeks to find throughlines from the ancient past to present to future. I want to know how things change through time and how they stay the same.”
- Morgan Hobbs
Gross McCleaf Gallery is pleased to present Chronolith, Morgan Hobbs’ first solo exhibition in Philadelphia and with the gallery.
Guest writer Lauren Whearty says: “Hobbs’ body of work focuses on the slow and methodical process of building a language - a new form of communication through paint, papier-mâché, and image. Each symbolic form is a building block for a wide array of possibilities with the potential to make new meaning through different combinations, or to break down the strength of an individual symbol into a more democratic piece of a larger whole.
“I believe artists must make space for pleasure in painting, both in the act of painting and in the pleasure of viewing it.”
-Lauren Whearty
In her first solo exhibition with Gross McCleaf Gallery, titled Painter’s Table, Lauren Whearty celebrates cheerful color and playful patterns in a contemporary take on the artistic tradition of still life painting. With a keen eye for possibilities within this genre, Whearty embraces a feminist perspective, using everyday objects as building blocks to create her own distinctive universe. Each item she incorporates becomes a referential exploration of art history and the process of image creation, adding depth and meaning to her work.
“Landscape is indeed an inspiring subject to someone who values surprise, change, nuance, and natural processes. Landscapes are intrinsically creative forces. First, they evolve as complex systems from the interactions of geologic, biotic, and climatic forces over time. Then, when experienced as subjective witnesses, landscapes offer a light unique to that moment. The observer sees not just with her eyes but with layers of knowledge, familiarity, emotions, and, most crucially, curiosity.”
-Thomas Paquette
On Nature features over thirty new landscape paintings from Gross McCleaf artist, environmentalist, and explorer, Thomas Paquette. Brilliant arrays of color depict lush terrain, hazy mountains, rushing rivers, and panoramic vistas, where subtle and sensitive details in light and atmosphere are perfectly captured.
“I love to paint in the presence of a sitter or in the light of a cityscape, but I can’t “capture” the appearance; rather, I move the paint around, simplify, blur, scrape, and rephrase until the beloved seems to appear…. The vocation of art begins in a longing that only the art can address. At first, the longing attaches to something in the world. But, over time, the artist notices something about how picturing itself causes almost anything seen to open as an occasion for wonder and surprise.”
- Scott Noel
In his eleventh solo exhibition at Gross McCleaf, Scott Noel presents an impressive selection of monumental, narrative paintings...
