Prof Sharon Morris
Professor of Fine Art
Slade School of Fine Art University College London
London WC1E 6BT
sharon.morris@ucl.ac.uk +44 (0)20 7679 2313
Biography
I was born in Wales and studied painting and fine art media at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, completing my PhD in 2000. While teaching at the Slade I also studied for an MA in psychoanalytic theory at Middlesex University, in 1996.
As a visual artist, poet and theorist, I am fascinated in the relation between words and images, and my work is best described as cross-disciplinary.
Research Summary
My early visual work includes drawing, photography, film, video and installation, accompanied by my written or spoken texts revolving around themes of place, subjectivity and identity: About Time, ICA, 1982; Audio Arts, Tate Gallery, 1982; Showroom Gallery, 1988; Ffotogallery, Cardiff, 1990, 1992. My film Cylch yr Ynys, ACGB funded, 1992, is distributed by LUX.
This led to doctorate study on the relation between words and images within the act of self-reference, in particular the photomontages of surrealist Claude Cahun and the writer H.D. The theoretical framework, using the semiotics of the American philosopher C.S.Peirce to re-read Freud has formed the basis of my current research, for which I received a Leverhulme Fellowship in 2003. My recent critical papers include ‘Peirce and the Image: the Work of Art and the Sign’, Università degli Studi di Urbino, 2007; ‘Bild, Imagismus und das Kunstwerk’, Kassel University Press, 2009; and ‘Open the Page’, Inside the View: Helen Sear. ed Drake, D. (Cardiff: Ffotogallery Wales, 2012).
In recent years I have become more involved in live performance of my texts with visuals, video and film, and the development of these texts into poetry. My first collection of poems, False Spring, Enitharmon Press, 2007, looked at the function of the image in the lyric short form, taking three locations, California, Rome, and Spain as leitmotifs. Shortlisted for the Aldeburgh prize for a first collection, poems from this book appeared in The Forward book of Poetry, 2008; Rome: A Collection of the Poetry of Place, 2008; and several journals.
I received a Hawthornden Fellowship in 2009 to work on a new collection, Gospel Oak, which
will be published by Enitharmon in December 2012. Formally this book is more diverse and the function of the image is both metaphorical and symbolic, dealing with the site of Gospel Oak as a discursive relation between Hampstead Heath and the City of London. Poems from this collection have appeared in several journals including Poetry Review, spring, 2012.
Accompanied by video projection, I have performed a parallel version entitled ‘For the Oak’, at e-and-eye, Tate Modern; PolyPly, and Crazy Wisdom, King’s Place, London. Video works arising from these performances have been exhibited at Skylines, Ecopoetics Festival Exeter, and Chelsea School of Art, 2012.
I have just taken on the role of commissioning editor for Copy Press, a publisher specialising in books by independent thinkers and artists.
Teaching Summary
Appointed in 1995 to set up the BA in Fine Art Media at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, I am currently Head of the Slade PhD programme.
At present I am supervising 8 doctorate students whose research includes: the poetics of word and image, in particular metaphor and narrative; psychoanalysis and creativity; imagination in the work of Höch; photography and memory; the subjectile in visual art; the philosophical status of the performative event as an act of translation. These students are co-supervised by specialists drawn across departments at UCL, creating exciting cross-disciplinary collaborations.
In 2011 I was fortunate to be awarded a Provost’s teaching award.
Exhibitions
The Moon and a Smile
2017Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea, Wales, UK
A series of 12 artist books with 28 poems and 48 digital photographs also printed as 12 scrolls plus 6 still photographic digital prints. The work responds to the early 19th century photographer Mary Dilwyn Llewellyn
‘Yellow Oak’ and ‘I wanted Green’.
2013Rowing
‘Yellow Oak’ stone lithography print and ‘I wanted Green’, 16mm film installation.
The din of happiness
2013Camden Arts Centre, London
16mm Film
Film-poem; engraved text on oak panel with 16mm film black and white loop projection commissioned by Lucy Reynold's work ANTHOLOGY.
I wanted Wood
2012Camden Arts Centre
Filmpoem: 16mm black and white film projection onto a sculptural object with a textual inscription from my book 'Gospel Oak'.
London's Burning, video of performance
2012Triangle Space, 16 Islip St. London, SW1 4JU
'Without Boats, Dreams dry Up' Organised by Cape Farewell, ecological issues in the arts and sciences
In Touch no, 15
1995Cooltan Arts Centre
Photo-text work, black and white
Changing Light installation
1995Wrexham Arts Centre
Video installed
In Touch no. 8
1995Cafe Gallery
Photo-text black and white
Changing Light
1994Smith Street Gallery, London
Set on the island of Skokholm off the coast of Pembrokeshire
'Everyday', and 'Away, Away'
1992MOMA Oxford; Leeds City Art Gallery
Sound works
Circle the Island
1992Aberystwyth Arts Centre; Rhyl Arts Centre; Ffotogallery, Cardiff
Installation of 108 photographs
Yr Ynys: The Island
1990Ffotogallery, Cardiff
Installation of still photographs with sounds and spoken text, taking the theme of the islands of Pembrokeshire
The Sound Between
1989AVE Festival, Arnhem, NL;London Film Festival, London Filmmaker's Co-op
Video installation with sound based on the coastline of Pembrokeshire
Yellow Lemon in 'Green House: Yellow Lemon'
1989Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff; Spacex Arts Centre, Exeter; Chisenhale Gallery, London
Installation of still photographs, projections of stills, sound set on the island of Crete. A joint touring exhibition with Helen Sear.
The Moon is Shining on My Mother
1988Chapter Arts Centre
Photographs and sound installation addressing the shift in language from Welsh to English
Between Themselves
1988Showroom Gallery, London
Installation with images addressing power structures using Sissinghurst as metaphor. Exhibition with Simon Biggs
Where is the Moment?
1987London Filmmaker's Co-op
Tape-slide sequence with spoken text
Institute of Measurement and Control
1985Spacex Arts Centre, Exeter; Plymouth Arts Centre
Photographs with sound work by Stuart Brisley
Food as Metaphor
1984Camerawork, London
Collaborative photographic installation work with Janet Anderson and Stuart Brisley
Seascape
1982Tate Gallery
Tape-slide taking driftwood turning as a metaphor for processes of history
Family Portrait
1981ICA, London; Third Eye Centre, Glasgow; Arnolfini Bristol; Franklin Furnace, New York
Tape-slide audio work with spoken text addressing issues of identity and subjectivity
We Thought we Could Walk on Water
South London GalleryStill photograph with spoken text taken the frozen sea in Helsinki as metaphor
Publications
The Moon is Shining on my Mother
Poems and Photographs
Fall
Poem 'Fall' discussed by Lees and Overing
From Pigments to Solar Power
Merched y Mabinogion
This presentation juxtaposes different perspectives of looking and reading through photography and poetry; the time zones of geology, history and the present; English and Welsh languages and their etymology; and recently, the intimate act of reading a book versus a scroll. Inspired by medieval manuscripts and their glosses, and inscribed stone monuments, which include Latin, Irish and Ogham scripts, her current interest is in the ‘macaronic’ as texts that are not necessarily translated.
The moon is shining on my mother
A series of 12 artist books with 28 poems and 48 digital images set in west Wales.
The Will of the Heart
Poem set in Andalucia
Review of four macaronic pamphlets
Review of four pamphlets integrating the English and Welsh languages
Peirce: Re-Staging the Sign in the Work of Art
In the tradition of Rosalind Krauss’s essay ‘Notes on the Index’ (1986) I want to re-posit the importance of the indexical status of the work of art and look at how Peirce’s views of aesthetics, his theory of the sign, and his version of phenomenology, can be useful to our understanding of contemporary works of art. The work of art that emerges from reading Peirce is not a representation of an object in the world but a mode of presentation of experience and in particular feeling. Defined as a complex form of icon, a hypoicon, the work of art is not constrained to mimetic representation but engaged in actively re-interpreting our world and our sense of self, cutting through preconceptions by returning us to the present: presentness, and the possibilities of firstness. Peirce’s late discussion on the study of phenomena, phaneroscopy, allows us to understand the work of art both as a part of our experience, and also as giving meaning to our experience: the work of art as a re-staging of the sign on the cusp between possibility and existence.
Songs of the Aveyron and the Ariege: after the Song of Songs
Structured in three parts - biopolitical bodies and imaginaries, voices and bodies, and social and environmental turbulence - this innovative book meshes performative and visual poetics with critical theory and feminist philosophy.
Bluestone, Carn Meini, In the Shelter of the Preseli, Carreg Coetan Arthur, Pentre Ifan, The Blue Lagoon.
6 poems and photographs, plus the front cover. These works are set in Wales using elements of the Welsh language.
Indwelling
Poem
Songs of the Aveyron and the Ariege, an extract
Poems responding to the Song of Songs, with contextualisation
Gospel Oak: poems
A collection of lyric verse set on Hampstead Heath looking at the city of London
‘Songs of the Aveyron and the Ariège’: an extract
Gospel Oak
A collection of poetry addressing the relationship between Hampstead Heath and the City of London
‘Songs of the Aveyron and the Ariège’: an extract
A sequence of poems first commissioned by Newham Cambridge addressing a sequence of prints by Judy Chicago based on the 'Song of Songs'. The poems use multiple translations of the Song of Songs. An extract to be translated and published in German.
Trees in Winter
Poem from collection 'Gospel Oak'
Opening the Book
An essay on the complete photographic works of Helen Sear, exploring the poetics of the image through the semiotics of CS Peirce and the poetics of subjectivity using psychoanalytic theory.
Chorus
Poem gloss taken from Plotinus
To the Source
Poem on the source of the river Fleet
'What do We Want? and 'For the Oak'
Two poems addressing the contemporary financial and cultural crisis taking the Oak as a leitmotif of the natural world
'Spring' and 'Denumerate'
Poems from the spring section of the collection Gospel Oak addressing multiplicity and unity
'Headlands'
Translations into German
Hanging On To The Hem Of Your Dress; Song of the Bull; For The Fig Tree; Horses; Rodalquilar;
Poems taken from the collection 'False Spring' 2007
Salt of Almonds, poems and black and white photographs
Poems set in Almeria, exploring the relation between the agave as a textual leitmotif within the poem and its photograph
For the Oak
Video of spoken poetry with projected video. Set on Hampstead Heath looking at the city, London
Songs of the Aveyron and the Ariege
Image, Imagism and the Work of Art, Bild, Imagismus und das Kunstwerk
This essay, based on a paper given for 'Bilder BeSchreiben,Kassel, 2007, an international conference addressing the polysemic character of the scripto-visual relation, raising questions of signification — how images demand verbal description, words signify images, images signify as fragments of complex multimedia events. At the interface between words, images, sound and music, contemporary art and in particular digital practices, internet e-art and e-poetry, demand an understanding of the status and function of the image as complex, implying an aesthetics capable of integrating various media. In order to bring the verbal and the visual into the same domain of analysis I turn to the general theory of signs as developed by C.S. Peirce, as an alternative to a linguistic model of signification.
Headlands
'Blue, Black Permanent' and 'Foel yr Eryr'
poetry set in Wales
Cylch Yr Ynys
CYLCH YR YNYS translated here as 'Circle of the Island' takes as its subject the island of Skokholm off the west Wales coast. One of a small group of bird sanctuaries, this particular site of special scientific interest supports one of the main breeding grounds of the Manx Shearwater, Storm Petrel and Auks. Lying in that region termed 'Little England Beyond Wales', the name Skokholm indicates the complex history of successive cultural invasions including that of the Scandinavians in the 8th century. Islands carry projections of 'Paradise', an idealisation often at odds with the daily reality of survival. From Skokholm looking west over the Atlantic, the tiny island of Grassholm lies white on one side, glistening white with Gannets. It is purported to be the island referred to in the Mabinogion as 'Gwales'. There Pryderi and his men spent eighty years in love with feasting and dancing until one of his men opened the forbidden door. They became conscious of their worldly tasks and passed from mythic to historical time through an act of remembrance: 'cofio'. Images filmed during the passing seasons of '91 reveal changes in vegetation and bird life observed through a repetition of viewpoints. The text refers to this breaking of myth through the acts of looking and listening.
Fold
Like Writing a Line in a Poem (extract). An interview with Sharon Morris by Jacqueline Gabbitas
Sharon Morris interviewed by ed. Jacqueline Gabbitas about her collection 'False Spring' and the writing process
Spoken text
The recording of a memory of painting hanging in The Collection, Lincoln, of trees in flower, a field and three cows, for an artwork by Simon Pope.
False Spring: Poems
A collection of poems examining the function of the Image as leitmotif. The book takes as its theme our relation to 'Place': Rome, northern coast California and Almeria, Spain.
For the Fig Tree
Kettle's Yard House
The will of the heart
Like Writing a Line in a Poem
Readings from Magma Issue 34
Peirce and the Image: The Work of Art and the Sign
Horses
Poem from the Collection 'False Spring', 2007
Artemis at Ephesus [MP3]
'The Incompleteness of Life' and 'Poor, Bare, Forked Animal
Woman: for Breda Beban
Further Notes on the Index
'Presage' and 'Rattlesnake'
Three poems from 'Salt of Almonds'
Almeria: the first track
Sitting on the Fence and Categorical Heart
Moving Image as Art: Time-based Media in the Art Gallery (Review)
'The Subject of Claude Cahun: The Nude and Self-Exposure',
An analysis of self-portraiture in the work of surrealist Claude Cahun
The Double Intended
The Subject of Rhythm
The importance of rhythm in understanding the structure of the subject within psychoanalysis, and an analysis of rhythm as a principle of editing the moving image.
The Subject of Subjectivity
Pool
Moving Image in Art
The Purpose of Blue
Turning a Telescope on the Soul: Freud's Interpretation of the Psyche
Shifting Eyes: self-representation in words and images, re-reading Freud through the semiotics of C.S. Peirce, with particular reference to the work of poet H.D. and artist Claude Cahun
'Shifting Eyes', presents a re-reading of Freud’s structural theories of the self, through the semiotics of C.S. Peirce. In place of the self split between unconscious representations and the syntax of speech, Peirce’s general sign theory provides an evolutionary account of symbol development within a trichotomy of sign-object relations, icon, index and symbol, as opposed to interpretations of Freud using the linguistic sign which reify the split subject and assimilate unconscious processes to the tropes of language. Peirce’s sign-interpretant relation, is used to re-describe Freud’s account of the shift from narcissism to object relations, from the primary iconic dyad to the subject constructed through the symbol of sexual difference. One class of icons, the hypoicon, is evaluated as a representation of the subject, since the hypoicon, unlike the symbol, does not uphold contradiction. Metaphor, as hypoiconic Third, is compared with Freud’s account of the structure of identification, both in terms of ego development and dream formation. The second part of the thesis uses these concepts to interpret the work of author H.D. and artist-writer Claude Cahun. H.D.’s œuvre - poetry, novels, memoirs and autobiography - lay bare the structure of the subject through the semiotics of the text, in particular transference and the act of naming. The poetry demonstrates the boundary between ego and world, myth and ideals of the ego, as the semiotics of identification. Cahun’s photographic self-portraits raise questions of the relation between body-image and narcissism, ideals and the subject of sexual difference. The last chapter concentrates on 'Aveux non avenus', (1930a) a work which integrates text and image using the principles of collage, juxtaposing photomontages with fragments of dream, fantasy, polemic and fiction as an extension of self-representation. In conclusion, the signifying self, as hypoiconic Third, is related to the body, re-posing the question of desire.
Drawing You
Review of Kaja Silverman
The Androgynous Self: Hoch and Cahun
The Lacemaker
Editorial with M. Storr
What's in a Name
Requiem
Audio work with spoken and sung text distributed by Audio Arts on cassette
Macaronic poems: a reading
A selection of poems written in a combination of English and Welsh
The Medieval Macaronic
Interval-seasons
The Purpose of Blue
Other Words
Rome/Roma, Mirror of the Sea
Almerla: Rome/Roma
2 sequences set in Rome, and in Almeria, Spain.
Wishing you: performance
Spoken prose poem of 20 mins duration with actions and object props including a ladder and binoculars exploring distance, literal and metaphorical.
'False Spring' and 'Cello Blue'
Live performance of Poems from collection 'False Spring', 2007, with 16mm film loop projection. Premiere of 'Cello Blue', my poem set to cello music by composer Anton Lukoszevize.
Salt of Almonds
Reading of 5 poems from ‘A Room to Live In: A Kettle’s Yard Anthology, ed. Yoseloff, T. (London: Salt publishing, 2007) pp.82-91. ISBN 978 1 84471 420 9
Invitation from Tammy Yoseloff to contribute to 'A Room to Live In: A Kettle’s Yard Anthology, (London: Salt publishing, 2007). This is an anthology of prose and poetry in response to the art collection.
Reading from my poetry collection 'False Spring', Enitharmon, 2007.
Celebration reading for The Poetry School.
After the Songs of Solomon: Songs of the Aveyron and the Ariege
A sequence of poems set in France based on various translations of the Hebrew text, in response to an invitation to respond to Judy Chicago’s prints 'Voices from the Song of Songs' for the Cambridge Festival of Ideas in Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. Subsequently published in the Long Poem Magazine, no. 2, summer, 2009.
A selection from collection of poetry 'False Spring' with music
Performance of poetry with oboe music by Andrew Sperling, in conjunction with an exhibition 'Starting at Zero: Black Mountain College, 1933-1957'.
'Rome', reading
Reading for Magma launch at the Troubadour poetry series
The Oak, Crazy Wisdom
Performance of spoken prose text with video projection and cello accomponiment by Anton Lukoszevieze
False Spring:translation into Romanian
For Gospel Oak
Live performance with video projection of spoken text, set on Hampstead Heath looking at the city of London
‘Songs of the Aveyron and the Ariège’,
A series of poems set in the South of France. The text echoes the form and poetics of the biblical 'Song of Songs'.
Seascape II
tape-slide work with text and images of the sea
'Each day, Everyday' and 'Away away'
Two sound works in a collection of sound works by women, edited by Sharon Morris. Financed by the Arts Council and British Telecom.
Cylch yr Ynys
A film of the changing year on the island of Skokholm, a nature reserve off the Pembrokeshire coast, exploring the poetics of place.
Changing Light
Poetics of the life of memory set on the island of Skokholm off the coast of Pembrokeshire
Changing Light
Poetics of the life of memory set on the island of Skokholm off the coast of Pembrokeshire
Changing Light
Poetics of the life of memory set on the island of Skokholm off the coast of Pembrokeshire
Cylch Yr Ynys
A film of the changing year on the island of Skokholm, a nature reserve off the Pembrokeshire coast, exploring the poetics of place.
Cylch Yr Ynys
Cylch Yr Ynys
A film of the changing year on the island of Skokholm, a nature reserve off the Pembrokeshire coast, exploring the poetics of place.
‘Songs of the Aveyron and the Ariège’,
A sequence of poems first commissioned by Newham Cambridge addressing a sequence of prints by Judy Chicago based on the 'Song of Songs'. The poems use multiple translations of the Song of Songs.
Extract from 'Gospel Oak', a series of poems
Performance reading from 'Gospel Oak', a series of poems set on Hampstead Heath looking at the relation between the Heath and the City of London.
I Wanted Green
Extract from 'For the Oak' text onto Oak panel, 'I Wanted Green' and 16mm film projection.
Turning to Welsh
A sequence of new writing set in Wales exploring the relation between English and Welsh languages and their importance in Pembrokeshire, west Wales.
Extract from Gospel Oak
Readings from Gospel Oak, a series of poems exploring the relation between Hampstead Heath and the City of London, examining rural history and the urban.
Extract from Gospel Oak
A series of poems addressing the relation between Hampstead Heath and London, exploring the relation between the city and its rural history
Extract from Gospel Oak
Reading from a series of poetry based on the relation between Hampstead Heath and the City of London, examining the history of the rural in the urban.
Songs of the Aveyron and the Ariege
A sequence of Poems after the 'Song of Songs', commissioned by New Hall Cambridge. This reading showcasing the Long Poem magazine, with Timothy Ades, Claire Crowther and David Morley.
Extract from Gospel Oak
A series of poems set on the Hampstead Heath looking at the City of London, exploring the relation between rural history and the urban
Extract from Gospel Oak
A series of poems addressing the relation between Hampstead Heath and the City of London, the rural underpinning the urban
Extract from Gospel Oak
Series of poems addressing the relation between Hampstead Heath and the City of London, the urban and its rural underpinnings
Gospel Oak, extract
Reading from Gospel Oak, collection of poetry
For the Oak
Spoken text with video projection, looking at the relation between Hampstead Heath and the City of London
Gospel Oak, an extract
A reading from the poetry collection Gospel Oak set on Hampstead heath looking at the City of London
Gospel Oak: Blue Bus Series
Reading from the poetry collection Gospel Oak
Coming to Welsh
Reading of poetry exploring translation between the English and Welsh languages
Gospel Oak, extract
Reading from Gospel Oak, collection of poetry, with performance of song
Coming to Welsh: Plurilingua
Performance of Poetry by Sharon Morris exploring the relation between the English and Welsh languages for the event, Plurilingua, part of Poetry International.
Peirce and the Image
An examination of the possibilities of using the philosophy of CS Peirce to open up interpretive possibilities of contemporary visual art
A Collaboration of Poetry: India and Wales
Collaborative poem
Extract from 'Gospel Oak'
Poetry
Poems from 'Gospel Oak'
Poems and Q&A for LAHP public event, On Reading
Heroines
Poems: for Claude Cahun and extract from Gospel Oak
‘H.D., Imagism and Poetry’.
Poetry reading and discussion for 'What is She Saying? Women and Silent Film', curated by Clare Crowther
‘Yr Onnen and other poems’
A sequence of poems in English and Welsh with video plus a discussion on poetry and place. The central theme is the Ash tree and its vulnerability.
For the Ash: I'r Onnen
A performance of macaronic English-Welsh poetry with visual projection
Mirror of the Sea
Selected Reading
Selected reading of poetry from 3 collections with improvised music by Anton Lukoszevieze