Morgan Wills, self portrait as Titian's young man with blue sleeve (after Titian), 2014, Courtesy of the artist

Morgan Wills

b. 1992, London

2011-2014 BA Fine Art Painting, Wimbledon College of Art, London

Recent Exhibitions

Group shows:
2015 ‘MK Open’, MK Gallery, Milton Keynes
2014 ‘Assembly’ CCW Alumni Show, Triangle space, Chelsea College of Art, London
2014 ‘HIX Award’, CNB Gallery, London

Artist’s Statement

The egg shaped character present in many of my paintings, is a recurring figure in my work and is representative of a concept that underpins my practice. It began life as, and now loosely serves as, an icon for the comparison between the Greek myth of Sisyphus and the practice of painting. In the myth, Sisyphus is damned to push a giant boulder up a hill only to watch it roll back down again, follow it down the hill, and repeat the process for the rest of eternity. Albert Camus, in his essay on the myth of Sisyphus, asks us to think of Sisyphus as happy, as an absurd hero for humanity. I think that nowhere is the joyous absurdity of human endeavor more accurately echoed than in the process of art making.

I, myself, am drawn to the practice of painting; I use references to the history of the subject as a visual language. However, it is not the practice of painting I want to critique, rather what is behind it. Why do we as human beings continue to push the boulder up the hill, why do I keep painting?