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
Born in west Wales I studied painting and fine art media at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, completing my PhD at the Slade in 2000. While teaching I also studied for an MA in psychoanalytic theory at Middlesex University, graduating in1996.
As a visual artist, poet and theorist, I am fascinated by the relation between words and images, and my work is best described as cross-disciplinary.
Research Summary
My visual work includes drawing, photography, film, video and audio-visual installation, accompanied by written or spoken texts revolving around themes of place, subjectivity and identity. Early exhibitions include: About Time, ICA, 1982; Audio Arts, Tate Gallery, 1982; Showroom Gallery, 1988; Ffotogallery, Cardiff, 1990, 1992. My 16mm film Cylch yr Ynys, ACGB funded, 1992, is distributed by LUX.
This led to doctoral study on the relation between words and images within the act of self-reference, in particular the photomontages of surrealist Claude Cahun and the prose and poetry of author 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 continuing research, for which I received a Leverhulme Fellowship in 2003. My 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); and ‘Peirce and the Image: Re-staging the Sign’, RS•SI Recherches sémiotiques / Semiotic Inquiry, 2015.
My first collection of poems, False Spring, Enitharmon Press, 2007, was shortlisted for the Aldeburgh prize for a first collection and anthologised in The Forward book of Poetry, 2008; Rome: A Collection of the Poetry of Place, 2008. I received a Hawthornden Fellowship in 2009 to work on a further collection, Gospel Oak, Enitharmon Press, 2013. An artist’s book of poetry and images, The Moon is Shining on my Mother, commissioned by the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea, for the exhibition The Moon and a Smile, and published by Enitharmon Editions, 2017, is held in various public collections including the V&A and the British Library. Readings of poems from these collections are available on The Archive of Now.
Performances of poetry with visuals and video include ‘For the Oak’, e-and-eye, Tate Modern, 2006; and Crazy Wisdom, King’s Place, London, 2009; PolyPly, 2010; Camden Arts Centre, 2013. Readings include Other Words. 3rd San Francisco International Poetry Festival, 2003; Starting at Zero, Kettle’s Yard Gallery, Cambridge, 2006; Poetry International, South Bank, 2014; a collaboration with Sampurna Chatterji, Gelynion – The Enemies Project: Wales, 2015; Multilingual World Literature, Swansea, 2017.
The research on the relation between words and images is currently focussing on the concept of the ‘macaronic’ as the juxtaposition of languages and images within the framework of the same poem, or artwork, as a means of questioning translation. Essays that articulate this concept exemplified in The Moon is Shining on my Mother include a review of macaronic pamphlets, Poetry Wales, 2016, vol. 52, no.3; and ‘Possibilities of The Macaronic’, in, Critical Creativity: Artistic Form and Cultural Agency in Comparative Literature, forthcoming, 2021.
With Prof. Clare Lees, director of the Institute of English Studies, SAS, University of London, and 5 Slade colleagues, I have established MiCA (Medieval in Contemporary Art) bringing together artists, writers, medievalists, and curators to realise research into medieval artefacts as a resource for contemporary art and poetry.
Teaching Summary
Appointed in 1995 to set up the BA in Fine Art Media at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, I have worked on several programmes across the Slade and UCL, including UCL Film Studies. I am currently Head of the Slade PhD programme.
I have supervised 15 PhD students to completion and am currently supervising 7, including Bunting-Branch writing on sci-fi fiction and Irigaray, Ciriciate working on small press publications and artists books, and Prazmari researching the 1001 Nights.
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
In Touch no. 8
1995Cafe Gallery
Photo-text black and white
Changing Light installation
1995Wrexham Arts Centre
Video installed
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
Fall
Poem 'Fall' discussed by Lees and Overing
The Moon is Shining on my Mother
Poems and Photographs
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 Will of the Heart
Poem set in Andalucia
Review of four macaronic pamphlets
Review of four pamphlets integrating the English and Welsh languages
The moon is shining on my mother
A series of 12 artist books with 28 poems and 48 digital images set in west Wales.
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
Trees in Winter
Poem from collection 'Gospel Oak'
‘Songs of the Aveyron and the Ariège’: an extract
‘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.
Gospel Oak: poems
A collection of lyric verse set on Hampstead Heath looking at the city of London
Gospel Oak
A collection of poetry addressing the relationship between Hampstead Heath and the City of London
'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
Chorus
Poem gloss taken from Plotinus
To the Source
Poem on the source of the river Fleet
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.
'Spring' and 'Denumerate'
Poems from the spring section of the collection Gospel Oak addressing multiplicity and unity
'Headlands'
Translations into German
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.
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
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
'Blue, Black Permanent' and 'Foel yr Eryr'
poetry set in Wales
Headlands
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
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.
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.
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
Fold
Horses
Poem from the Collection 'False Spring', 2007
Peirce and the Image: The Work of Art and the Sign
Readings from Magma Issue 34
Kettle's Yard House
For the Fig Tree
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.
Like Writing a Line in a Poem
The will of the heart
Further Notes on the Index
Woman: for Breda Beban
Artemis at Ephesus [MP3]
'The Incompleteness of Life' and 'Poor, Bare, Forked Animal
'Presage' and 'Rattlesnake'
Three poems from 'Salt of Almonds'
Sitting on the Fence and Categorical Heart
Almeria: the first track
The Subject of Subjectivity
'The Subject of Claude Cahun: The Nude and Self-Exposure',
An analysis of self-portraiture in the work of surrealist Claude Cahun
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 Double Intended
Moving Image as Art: Time-based Media in the Art Gallery (Review)
Moving Image in Art
Pool
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.
Review of Kaja Silverman
Drawing You
The Lacemaker
The Androgynous Self: Hoch and Cahun
What's in a Name
Editorial with M. Storr
Requiem
Audio work with spoken and sung text distributed by Audio Arts on cassette
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
A Collaboration of Poetry: India and Wales
Collaborative poem
‘H.D., Imagism and Poetry’.
Poetry reading and discussion for 'What is She Saying? Women and Silent Film', curated by Clare Crowther
For the Ash: I'r Onnen
A performance of macaronic English-Welsh poetry with visual projection
‘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.
Selected Reading
Selected reading of poetry from 3 collections with improvised music by Anton Lukoszevieze
Mirror of the Sea
The Macaronic: Verbal and Visual
A selection of poems written in a combination of English and Welsh
The Medieval Macaronic
Interval-seasons
The Purpose of Blue
Other Words
Almerla: Rome/Roma
2 sequences set in Rome, and in Almeria, Spain.
Rome/Roma, Mirror of the Sea
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.
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.
'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.
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.
Salt of Almonds
'Rome', reading
Reading for Magma launch at the Troubadour poetry series
False Spring:translation into Romanian
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'.
The Oak, Crazy Wisdom
Performance of spoken prose text with video projection and cello accomponiment by Anton Lukoszevieze
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
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
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
‘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.
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', 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.
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
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
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 addressing the relation between Hampstead Heath and London, exploring the relation between the city and its rural history
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
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, extract
Reading from Gospel Oak, collection of poetry
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.
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
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