Pard Morrison: Spontaneous Order

Brian Gross Fine Art is pleased to announce an exhibition of new works by Colorado sculptor, Pard Morrison, opening on July 9, 2015, with a reception for the artist on Saturday, July 11th. On view will be a major new freestanding sculpture and seven multicolored shaped paintings on patinated aluminum. In Spontaneous Order, Morrison’s signature geometric sculptural forms now expand to include large areas of uniform color, creating forms that are limitless in scope and measure. Spontaneous Order will be on view through August 29, 2015.

Combining minimalist form and color with painterly application, Morrison uses an enameling process called patination to create work that successfully combines paint and sculpture. This unification is achieved by the wrapping of vivid rectilinear forms on and around the surface of each sculptural shape. Unlike in previous work where every imagined facet or plane was signified by its own block of color, Morrison now adds large areas of singular colors to represent multiple facets, or planes. This unquantifiable area creates a glimpse into what Morrison describes as a system in flux. Morrison further illustrates this structural fluctuation by allowing the delineated blocks of colors to fold all the way back to the wall, while floating the large swaths of uniform color above, as if breaking away.

Morrison’s large-scale freestanding sculpture, Outlier, measures an impressive nine feet tall and makes for a profound physical encounter. Stacks of brilliant geometric cubes balance lyrically upon one another, simultaneously creating a structural tension and tranquility. Through these various representations of structure and composition, Morrison aims to represent both the minimal and complex, the natural and artificial. He blurs the lines between traditional painting and advanced fabrication to confound our visual expectations and question our assumptions. Morrison states, “My interest lies in the exploration of this intersection; the intersection of pictorial illusion, and specific object, and the marriage of both.”

Pard Morrison was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado and received his BFA in sculpture from Colorado State University. His work has been exhibited widely throughout the United States and can be found in the collections of The Lannan Foundation, Santa Fe, NM, Colorado State University Art Museum, Fort Collins, CO, Colorado Springs Fine Art Center, University of Wyoming Art Museum, Laramie, WY, and The Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Los Angeles, CA. In 2013 Morrison was featured in The Lannan Foundation’s exhibition, AGAIN, Repetition, Obsession, and Meditation in The Lannan Collection, and was included in the exhibition, CATALYST, at the Denver Botanical Gardens. Morrison currently lives and works in Colorado Springs. This is his third exhibition with Brian Gross Fine Art.