Morgan says of this work, “In my work I explore and reinterpret the medium of painting, and more recently, sculpture. From a conceptual approach, I aim to dissect painting into its discrete elements, such as linen, paint or stretcher bars, to enquire into what makes a painting in the digital age. By creating formal studies into material, I explore what I call the ‘virtual gaze’, that is, how our mode of perception is shifting as our lives are increasingly mediated by the screen. In my show ‘Skin’, I interpret painting as a metaphor for personhood and subsequently surface as a metaphor for skin.

Inspired by techniques and forms seen in Alberto Burri’s Material Realism, art movements like the Korean Dansaekhwa and Post-Minimalism, and the suspended sculptures of Jose Dávila, the works in ‘Skin’ are reduced in order to emphasise their materiality. Surfaces of the canvases form a type of skin, constructed through repetitive actions that create highly textured surfaces. 

In a way, his paintings explore the dynamic traits of skin—its vulnerabilities to space and time and its unique irregularities. In some works, traditional painting materials such as linen and canvas are torn up and reconstructed; perhaps questioning what makes a painting in the digital age. Silk, metal and clothing stand in for canvas in others, our eyes question the surface. Elsewhere, the fabric stretches or expands depending on the level of humidity; the painting breathes and changes, it is not a static image.  Extract from Stephanie Wade’s essay – A Glitch In Time (2003)