Cactus with Hat - Keith Morrison (New)
Cactus with Hat, Keith Morrison

Cactus with Hat

Artist

Keith Morrison

Nationality

Jamaican

Medium

Offset Lithograph

Date

2002

Dimensions

21 x 13 3/4 inches

Edition Size

70 prints in this edition

Printer

Robert "Bob" Franklin

Provenance

Brandywine Workshop and Archives

Location

Philadelphia, PA

About the Work

From the Artist

My earliest prints at Brandywine [Workshop and Archives, Philadelphia, in 1985] related to festivities such as Carnival (Brazil), Mardis Gras (New Orleans), Jonkonnu (Jamaica), and other Caribbean and American African-based festivals, with their spectacular imagery and costumes. As in such festivals, my earlier prints were tinged with Eurocentric pageantry, costumes, and religions, although African ancestral imagery predominated. The prints were also inspired by music, such as African music, Caribbean music, and Jazz. From music I learned how to think ahead to avoid confusion as I planned. And from music I learned how to make complex compositions and to improvise. Some of my earlier compositions may seem chaotic at first (not unlike some music) but become more understandable to the patient viewer. Through music I learned how to make form and color pulsate and reverse position and direction in visual counterpoint. However, whereas such things are the essence of music they are merely factors that support imagery in my prints. I don’t try to make visual music. My art is not music but is affected by it. My recent prints are more narrative than the earlier ones. In some of these later prints [made between 1993 and 2012] I use imagery such as Yoruba Ibeji figures, tropical plants, animals, landscape, musical instruments  and ceremonial objects along with human figures. In these more recent prints, I create stories and make complex compositions that are still inspired by music, but which are more literal in content. The stories embedded in my more recent prints are my own creation about the African Diaspora: life and fantasy of people of African descent worldwide.  
—From Brandywine Workshop and Archives records

About the Artist

Keith Morrison

Artist, art professor, curator, writer, and administrator Keith Anthony Morrison was born in Jamaica. Morrison studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he received a BFA and MFA. He represented the United States as an art cr...

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