Rachel Morrissey is an American artist currently living and working in Medfield, Massachusetts.
Rachel Morrissey was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts in 1986. 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. She has been featured in Create Magazine, Art Seen Magazine, Women’s United Magazine and Friend of the Artist. Her work has been exhibited with Voltz Clarke Gallery in New York City and 19 Karen Gallery in Queensland, Australia. She is a mother of two young children. Morrissey currently lives and works in her home studio in Medfield, Massachusetts, United States.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Rachel Morrissey’s 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.
EDUCATION
2016 - MFA, Massachusetts College of Art & Design, Boston, MA
2014 - Post Baccalaureate, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA 2009 - BFA Studio Art, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
SOLO & TWO PERSON SHOWS
2023 - New Beginnings with Daniel Adenitan at Voltz Clarke Gallery, January 26-March 4, 2023
SELECT GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2023- Fresh Talent pt 1. ,Artistellar Gallery (online show), September 2023
2023 - Group Exhibition, 19 Karen Gallery, Queensland, Australia, September 2023
2023 - Raw Emotion II, Group Exhibition, Gallery Tempo, Jamaica Plain, MA, Summer 2022 - Finding A Memory, Group Exhibition, Piano Craft Gallery, September 2022
2022 - Raw Emotion, Group Exhibition at Gallery Tempo, Jamaica Plain, MA, 6/30/2022 2022 - SOURCE, Group Exhibition, MassArt X SoWa Gallery, March, Boston, MA
2021 - Forbidden Fruit, I Like Your Work Podcast, Piano Craft Gallery, September 2021 2021 - Women in Abstraction, New Art Center Corridor at the Trio, Newton, MA
2021 - Bosscritt Daily January, Virtual Exhibition, Winter/Spring 2021
2021 - Las Laguna Art Gallery, Small Works Big Talent 1/8-1/30/2021
2020 - Every Day In August, Virtual Exhibition, Bosscritt Curitorial Club, Fall 2020
2020 - Congruence, I Like Your Work Podcast, Juried By Bridget Mayer Gallery, Summer 2020 - Superfine E-fair, Summer 2020, New York, NY
2019 - 29th Annual MassArt Auction, Bakalar & Paine Galleries, Boston, MA
2016 - MFA Thesis Exhibition, Bakalar & Paine Galleries, Boston, MA
2016 - Summer GIF Show, Pink Box Collective, Online
2016 - 27th Annual MassArt Auction, Bakalar & Paine Galleries, Boston, MA
2016 - Ways to Use Walls, Student Life Gallery, Boston, MA
2016 - Creative Counterpoints: Women Difference & the Arts, Arnheim Gallery, MA
2016 - That Thing You Said, Arnheim Gallery, Boston, MA
2015 - Hurry Up & Wait 2, Aviary Gallery, Boston, MA
2015 - Hurry Up and Wait, group show, Arnheim Gallery, Boston, MA
2015 - “Bouncing in the Corner”, group show, subSamson, Boston, MA
PRESS
2023 - Create Magazine, Issue 37, The Women’s Issue, Summer 2023 2023 - Art Seen Magazine, Summer 2023
2023 - Women United Art Magazine, Issue III, Spring 2023
2023 - Canvas Rebel, Spring 2023
2022 - February, Friend of the Artist, Volume 14
2022 - I Like Your Work Podcast, Online Interview, May 2022
2021 - Deanna Evans Projects, Curated Studio Visits
2020 - Candyfloss Magazine, Enchanted Issue, Fall 2020
2020 - Visionary Art Collective, Artist Feature & Interview, September 2020
AWARDS
2014 - The Doran Scholarship, Massachusetts College of Art and Design 2013 - Post Baccalaureate Grant, School of the Museum of Fine Arts