Bedside Vigil Morgan Allender Morgan Allender - Bedside Vigil
Bedside Vigil 2023
Bedside VigilMorgan AllenderBedside Vigil
Bedside Vigil2023
oil on linen
138 x 123 cm
$9,500  ENQUIRE
Benton End Morgan Allender Morgan Allender - Benton End
Benton End 2023
Benton EndMorgan AllenderBenton End
Benton End2023
oil on linen
147 x 183 cm
$12,000  ENQUIRE
Desire Lines Morgan Allender Morgan Allender - Desire Lines
Desire Lines 2023
Desire LinesMorgan AllenderDesire Lines
Desire Lines2023
oil on linen
138 x 123 cm
$9,500  ENQUIRE
On Dusk Morgan Allender Morgan Allender - On Dusk
On Dusk 2023
On DuskMorgan AllenderOn Dusk
On Dusk2023
oil on linen
123 x 138 cm
SOLD 
Message Morgan Allender Morgan Allender - Message
Message 2023
MessageMorgan AllenderMessage
Message2023
oil on linen
138 x 123 cm
$9,500  ENQUIRE
Upon Waking Morgan Allender Morgan Allender - Upon Waking
Upon Waking 2023
Upon WakingMorgan AllenderUpon Waking
Upon Waking2023
oil on linen
147 x 178 cm
SOLD 
Soft Skin Warm Earth Morgan Allender Morgan Allender - Soft Skin Warm Earth
Soft Skin Warm Earth 2023
Soft Skin Warm EarthMorgan AllenderSoft Skin Warm Earth
Soft Skin Warm Earth2023
oil on linen
147 x 183 cm
SOLD 
For Piero II Morgan Allender Morgan Allender - For Piero II
For Piero II 2023
For Piero IIMorgan AllenderFor Piero II
For Piero II2023
oil on linen
138 x 123 cm
SOLD 
The Scent of Carnations Morgan Allender Morgan Allender - The Scent of Carnations
The Scent of Carnations 2023
The Scent of CarnationsMorgan AllenderThe Scent of Carnations
The Scent of Carnations2023
oil on linen
138 x 123 cm
SOLD 
Bodice Morgan Allender Morgan Allender - Bodice
Bodice 2023
BodiceMorgan AllenderBodice
Bodice2023
oil on linen
138 x 123 cm
SOLD 
First Signs Morgan Allender Morgan Allender - First Signs
First Signs 2023
First SignsMorgan AllenderFirst Signs
First Signs2023
oil on linen
147 x 183 cm
SOLD 
Recollection Morgan Allender Morgan Allender - Recollection
Recollection 2023
RecollectionMorgan AllenderRecollection
Recollection2023
oil on linen
138 x 123 cm
SOLD 

Morgan Allender, Soft Skin Warm Earth

Notes ~ January 2023

My work has long explored an enduring fascination with the role of flowers and plants within culture. The human impulse to gather small, fragile treasures from nature and offer them up to each other, ourselves or a greater god is something that has endured through millennia and across cultural and geographic divides. That simple and incredibly moving act of intimacy with nature is really a desire to capture the fleeting, halt time and find connection between ourselves and the infinite.

These paintings look specifically at this gesture as both an intimate and sacred act. What impulse drives me to pluck three small flowers and a shell and marvel at their soft decline into decay on the bedside table? The boudoir, the windowsill, the grotto, the alter, a flower tucked behind the ear on a long summer walk or tucked in against the skin in the folds of a blouse…. simultaneously they offer portals into intimate spaces, of the Feminine and the interior. Soft skin, sheer drapery, a glimpse of garden through window drapery, a mole on pink flesh, and the fecundity of flowers springing from the earth and carefully gathered on a windowsill. A letter from a lover, a room of her own.

Inspiration for these works draws from the Renaissance Italian masters Sandro Botticelli, Piero Della Francesca and Filippo Lippi, the geometry underlying their compositions, the burnished colours, their clarity of light and palette. A friend said some years ago that my paintings are reminiscent of ultra-zoom views of the foregrounds of master paintings, with their tangled grasses and seasonal plants and flowers. He was specifically nodding towards the Pre-Raphaelite painters and since then I have found myself peering at paintings in various museums, drawn to those bottom few centimetres of foreground so rich in detail and symbolism, glowing quietly beneath the active goings-on of the main composition above.

Travel has formed an important part of research and inspiration since 2017, with visits to Italy, France, and the UK providing a gathering ground for palette and texture and sensorial experience: the mottled pink plaster surface of a Florentine fresco, the warm rust of Tuscan soil glowing in a midsummer sunset, a 17th century textile fragment in a Parisian museum, the dawn chorus shimmering green through an upstairs casement …. Sources of inspiration are diverse memory fragments that are undeniably grounded in the melancholic nostalgia for fleeting moments of sensory pleasure. It is these unrepeatable and emotive passages of time that I am always striving to find and capture within the layers of paint: Light, intimacy, texture, longing.

Morgan Allender 'Soft Skin Warm Earth'

Morgan Allender (b.1982) works within the medium of large-scale oil paintings to create evocative works that sit within the liminal space between landscape and still-life. Her boldly gestural paintings use botanical subjects to underpin mysterious, layered windows of light and dark. Meditations on the connection between nature and the human heart, they are built upon a foundation of technical knowledge and psychological colour theory.

Morgan has been awarded and shortlisted for a number of national prizes, including the Fleurieu Biennale Prize (winner and finalist), The Hutchins Australian Contemporary Art Prize (finalist), the Muswellbrook Prize (finalist), The Country Arts Breaking Ground Award (winner), and the Waterhouse Prize (finalist). Her paintings feature in private collections throughout Australia, the USA, the UK, Italy and Japan.

Her dual interests and training in the areas of fine art and horticultural design place her within a long lineage of painters, writers and sculptors whose work is a reflection of time spent both in the studio and in the making of gardens as artform. Her studio is in a converted barn in the Adelaide Hills, set within two acres of garden she has created from scratch on a previously deserted site. This stimulates a cyclical flow of ideas and inspiration between her canvasses and the surrounding natural environment.

Morgan Allender

1982, Australia

Lives and works in the Adelaide Hills, South Australia

EDUCATION

2004

  • Bachelor Fine Art (Honours), Adelaide Central School of Art, SA

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2023

  • 'Soft Skin Warm Earth', Edwina Corlette Gallery, Brisbane

2021

  • 'My Studio Is A Walled Garden', online exhibition, morganallender.com

2020

  • 'Soft Grass And Silence', online exhibition, morganallender.com

2019

  • 'The Garden', online exhibition, morganallender.com

2018

  • 'Recent Works', online exhibition, morganallender.com

2017

  • 'A Restless Green', online exhibition, morganallender.com
  • 'New Paintings', online exhibition, morganallender.com

2015

  • 'Seeing Spring', Artspace Gallery, Adelaide Festival Centre, SA

2013

  • 'Recent Works', Helen Gory Galerie, Melbourne, VIC

2011

  • 'The Grove', BMG Art, Adelaide, SA
  • 'The Golden Hour', Helen Gory Galerie, Melbourne, VIC

2009

  • 'Wildwood Bower', Helen Gory Galerie, Melbourne, VIC
  • 'Recent Works', BMG Art, Adelaide, SA

2008

  • 'Realm', Helen Gory Galerie, Melbourne, VIC

2007

  • 'Landscape Lost', Helen Gory Galerie, Melbourne, VIC

2006

  • 'The Flood', Helen Gory Galerie, Melbourne, VIC

    GROUP EXHIBITIONS

        2017

        • 'Spring Art', (guest feature artist), Loreto, SA

        2016

        • 'Even Still', Adelaide Town Hall, SA

        2014

        • 'How Does Your Garden Grow', Murray Bridge Regional Gallery, Murray Bridge, SA
        • 'Florabotanica', Adelaide Central Gallery, Adelaide, SA

        2013

        • 'Wonderfall', Hill Smith Gallery, Adelaide, SA
        • 'Crystal Palace', Flinders University Art Museum & City Gallery, SA

        2012

        • 'Conversations in Ellipsis', SASA Gallery. SA

        2011

        • 'Double Vision', curated Mary-Jean Richardson, Adelaide Central Gallery, Adelaide, SA

        2010

        • 'Short Stories', Helen Gory Galerie, Melbourne, VIC
        • Melbourne Art Fair, Helen Gory Galerie stand, Melbourne, VIC

        2009

        • Whyalla Art Prize, Middleback Theatre Gallery, Whyalla, SA

        2008

        • Fleurieu Biennale Landscape Prize, Hardys Tintara Winery, McLaren Vale, SA
        • 'Contemporaneous', Wangaratta Gallery, Wangaratta, VIC

        AWARDS AND RESIDENCIES

        2018

        • Finalist, Muswellbrook Art Prize, NSW
        • Finalist, Fleurieu Biennale Prize, SA
        • Finalist, Hutchins Australian Contemporary Art Prize, TAS
        • Finalist, Waterhouse At Prize, SA
        • Research expedition, France, UK

        2017

        • Research expedition, UK, Fance, Italy

        2015

        • Winner, Country Arts Breaking Ground Award, SA

        2008

        • Highly Commended, Fleurieu Art Prize, SA

        2006

        • Winner, Fleurieu Art Prize Youth Scholarship, SA

        2005

        • Winer, The Advertiser Oscart Award – Best Emerging Painter, SA

        2000

        • Winner, Pro Hart Scholarship, Bachelor Fine Art, Adelaide Central School of Art, SA

        COLLECTIONS

        • Artbank
        • Private collections throughout Australia and United Kingdom, United States, Italy.

        22 March 2023 – 11 April 2023
        Morgan Allender ‘Soft Skin Warm Earth’