Victoria Morton with films by Anne-Marie Copestake

14 March - 2 May 2010. Tues - Sun, 10am - 5.30pm

Victoria Morton, Parts of Portrait, 2010. Image: Ruth Clarke. Courtesy of the artist, The Modern Institute/Toby Webster Ltd. and Sadie Coles HQ.

This exhibition displayed new work by Victoria Morton made for the seven naturally-lit rooms of Inverleith House. Having attracted critical acclaim for exhibitions presented in Britain, Europe and the United States, this was Morton's first major solo exhibition in a Scottish gallery for seven years, following her 2009 residency at the Isabella Stuart Gardener Museum in Boston, United States.

Morton's vivid paintings "marry a bold flamboyance with a delicate luminosity, as she combines diverse art historical influences with photography and personal expression..." Recently, her exhibitions have also included the use of sculptural elements. The new works in this exhibition are concerned with constructing a series of situations for the viewer to experience. These installations displayed combinations of interdependent physical and cognitive relationships, where paintings seem to contain the energy of figures and sit with other elements in a system of support and collapse. In this way, the paintings become characters enacting a phsychological drama.

Victoria Morton installation view. Image: Ruth Clarke. Courtesy of the artist, The Modern Institute/Toby Webster Ltd. and Sadie Coles HQ.

Morton uses the term "explicit abstract realism" to describe her work and feels that the impulse to create comes from bodily drives as well as the desire to pursue the mental exercise involved in the disruption and reformation of complex image making.

Victoria Morton (b. Glasgow, 1971) lives and works in Glasgow and Fossombrone, Italy.

This exhibition was Morton's largest exhibition to date and her first solo museum exhibtion in Scotland for eight years. Over the last two years, Morton has divided her time between working in studios in Fossombrone (Italy) and in Glasgow, and most of the works on display were completed during this time. The exhibition is accompanied by a room of films by Anne-Marie Copestake in the lower-ground floor gallery.

Morton uses the term "explicit abstract realism" to describe her work and feels that the impulse to make comes from bodily drives as well as the desire to pursue the mental exercise involved in the disruption and reformation of complex image making. There are several aspects to this process. One is informed by personal reflection on the folklore of paintng and an interest in the position of women in relation to that history. The other is drawn from her own persoal culture and relations. And, finally ther is the direct, intensive and automatic engagement she has with materials.

Recently, Morton's exhibtions have also included the use of sculptural elements and photography. THe works in theis exhibtion were made over a two year period (some with Inverleith House specifically in mind) and have been prtly influenced by a residency at teh Isabella Stuart Gardener Museim in Boston in 2009. The new installations shown at Inverleith House display the combinations of interdependent physical and cognitive relationships, where paintings seem to contain the energy of figures and sit with other elements in a system of support and collapse.

In 1999 Anne-Marie Copestake evolved the idea of Trigger tonic video archive. Trigger tonic focused on visiting artists, writers and musicians as subjects - those travelling to do what they do and to present their work to others. Copestake arranged conversation interviews with them about their work; an important facet of the project being to invite local artists and musicians to conduct the conversation interviews. This exhibition features the artist Ellen Cantor interviewed by Cathy WIles and the group Chicks on Speed interviewed by Victoria Morton.

Born in Glasgow, Victoria Morton continues to live and work there. She gained her BA (Hons) and Masters degrees in Fine Art at Glasgow school at Art from 1989 to1993 and 1993 to 1995 respectively. Between 1997 and 2001 she worked as a lecturer in Drawing and Painting at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee,

Selected solo exhibitions include; in 2008 ba BA ba, Sadie Coles HQ, London, UK 2007 Sun by Ear (with Katy Dove), Tramway, Glasgow, Scotland, UK 2005 Victoria Morton, The Modern Institute, Glasgow, Scotland, UK 2004

Victoria Morton, Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn, Germany (cat); Curiosity Action Crowd, Sadie Coles HQ, London, UK 2003 Il Capricorno, Venice, Italy; The Modern Institute, Glasgow, Scotland, UK; Blue Dog Tooth, II Capricorno, Venice, Italy 2002 Pleasure & Practice (basement project), Transmission Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland, UK; Night Geometry, Gavin Brown's Enterprise, New York (NY), USA; Plus and Minus, Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, UK (cat.); My Heart is on Fire but my Head is Full of Love, Charlottenborg Udstillingsbygning, Copenhagen, Denmark 2001 Sadie Coles HQ, London, UK; Galerie Enja Wonneberger, Kiel, Germany 1999 The Modern Institute, Glasgow, Scotland, UK 1997 Dirty Burning, 33 Great Sutton Street, London, UK 1996 Transmission Gallery, Glasgow, UK 1995 Wilkes, Glasgow, UK

Anne-Marie Copestake lives and works in Glasgow. She completed a Masters degree at the Glasgow School of Art between 1995 - 1997.

Selected exhibitions and projects include 2009 'Muscles of Joy', (with Muscles of Joy) performances at 'Subject in Process' symposium, Glasgow; Le Weekend,Tollbooth, Stirling; Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee; and Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow; 'Open Field', Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow 2008 'Joy Boy', print and text edition, published with Aye Aye Books, Glasgow 2007 'Squirrel and Deer', text piece commission for 'Secure in Flames' exhibition, Intermedia, Glasgow 2006 'Anne-Marie Copestake', Glasgow International Festival of Contemporary Art, The Briggait, Glasgow; 'Planting the Tele', Mary Mary gallery, Glasgow 2004'I don't know my name', Sega Building, Folsom Street, San Francisco 2002 'Half the world away', Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Centre, Buffalo, New York 2001 'Anne-Marie Copestake', Transmission, Glasgow 2000 'The Department', Intermedia Gallery, Glasgow 1999 'Fields and rays and green numbers', Pineapple project room, Malmo.

To accompany the exhibition the band Muscles of Joy (of which Victoria Morton and Anne-Marie Copestake are members) performed a gig at Edinburgh's 'Sneaky Pete's' Venue in April 2010.

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