April 2022 AIR: Nyeema Morgan
We are excited to share the work of our April Artist in Residence - Nyeema Morgan
Learn more about their practice and what they are going to accomplish here at LATITUDE.
Nyeema Morgan, Soft Power. Hard Margins. (1960), 2020, Mixed media: cast resin, acrylic, wood, LEDs, metal leaf, mixed paper media.
Q & A
Q: WE ARE ALL SO EXCITED TO HAVE YOU. SOMETHING THAT DREW US TO YOUR APPLICATION WAS THE WIDE VARIETY OF MATERIALS YOU USE TO EXECUTE YOUR WORKS. WHAT MATERIALS ARE YOU INTERESTED IN EXPLORING AT LATITUDE?
I’m very excited to be working at Latitude. I’ve been thinking about the sensuality of surface and the materiality and legibility of text. So I’ll be printing on a lot of different materials, doing some layering, transfers, possibly collages— a lot of fun stuff.
Q: I THINK MEMES CAN BE A FORM OF STORYTELLING BECAUSE THEY ARE COMMUNITY-DRIVEN AND CULTURALLY RELEVANT. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF MEMES AS A FORM OF STORYTELLING? WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE MEME.
Although they’re community driven, the narrative is shaped algorithmically. (Algorithmic narratives are a much larger conversation). Memes don’t really hold up on their own for a long period of time the way traditional stories do. They’re more significant as a phenomenon in terms of how they shape the cultural spirit of our age. There’s just too many for any one to be precious, which is why I don’t have a favorite. Try explaining a particular meme to someone— there’s this guy and he’s giving a formal TV interview, he sneezes and without missing a beat he blesses and thanks himself. The caption says something about self love.
Q: I READ THAT YOU DO NOT LIKE USING THE WORD "FAILURE" IN ART-MAKING. CAN YOU SHARE MORE ABOUT THAT AND NAME A TIME WHEN A "FAILURE" BECAME A POSITIVE OR A LEARNING MOMENT?
‘Failure’ is so final. I might refer to something as “not working” or being “unsettled”. These are all momentary states and usually evolve into something more ‘suitable’. There have been so many of those instances within my practice that I can’t isolate one. But they’ve included everything from yielding to the conditions of my working environment and letting the space shape certain decisions I wouldn't have initially made, breaking a sculpture or a casting, a stain or a bad print that becomes a part of the final image.
Nyeema Morgan, Like It Is: Extraordinary Togetherness, 2021, graphite pencil on Coventry rag paper. (Photo: Joseph Wu).
Q: HAS THERE BEEN AN IMAGE THAT HAS BEEN WIDELY CIRCULATED IN THE MEDIA THAT YOU KEEP ON GOING BACK TO? THIS COULD BE FOR YOUR ART PRACTICE OR PERSONAL LIFE.
One delightful image that comes to mind every now and then is Trump’s legal team holding a press conference at the Four Seasons Total Landscaping. I’m sure there’s countless memes of that image! Related to my art practice, for the past 4 years I’ve been thinking about landscapes from the old Road Runner cartoons. I’ve been using images from these in some of my drawings, pulling out motion illustrations. Most recently, using fragments of those landscapes in a series of screenprints.
Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images
Nyeema Morgan, Dear Arlene, 2019, Screenprint, acrylic, sumi ink and graphite on paper.
Q: YOUR WORK IS THOUGHTFUL AND INTELLECTUAL. IS THERE ANYTHING YOU LIKE TO WATCH, READ, OR LISTEN TO THAT BREAKS FROM THE ACADEMIC AND, MAYBE, LEANS TOWARDS A TRASHY OR GUILTY PLEASURE?
I wouldn’t call it trashy and I don’t have any guilt about my pop culture vices. I’m a child of the 80s, a latch-key kid so I love television as a storytelling medium. I’ll watch anything and everything!
NYEEMA MORGAN
Nyeema Morgan is an interdisciplinary artist. She has had solo and two-person exhibitions at The Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Boulder, CO; Wahlquist Gallery, Portland, ME; Marlborough Contemporary, NYC, NY as well as being included in group exhibitions at CSS Bard Galleries, Annandale-on-Hudson, Galerie Jean Roche Dard, Paris, France; The Studio Museum in Harlem, NYC, NY and The Drawing Center, NYC, NY. Her awards and residencies include the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace Program, NYC, NY; Shandaken Project Residency at Storm King Art Center, New Windsor, NY; a Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant and Art Matters Grant. Morgan earned her MFA from the California College of the Arts and a BFA from the Cooper Union School of Art. She currently lives and works in Chicago, IL.