About
Morrigan Atherton is an oil painter who has been pursuing her career in the arts for nearly ten years. Her interests began when she found peace and vulnerability through creative expression during her formative years. This is reflected in her current pieces, where she creates work that highlights the beauty and futility of life and surrealist explorations of art used as a form of self-therapy. She communicates important themes throughout her work, such as psychological trauma, materialism and mortality, emphasising the significance of gratitude and living a meaningful life. She has had numerous independent and collaborative art exhibitions and won prestigious competitions, which have led to her work being permanently displayed in museums and company headquarters. Additionally, she had the opportunity to speak at Buckingham Palace about her work when she was 14. She plans to pursue a career in art alongside digital marketing and has an interest in art psychotherapy. She is actively showcasing her work and processes on social media, where she is gaining growing recognition for her practice and relating to other fellow creatives.
Project overview
The Letter Collection
This collection is focused on automative technique incorporating hyperrealism and surrealism. Morrigan's three works are inspired by a letter she received on her 21st birthday from her estranged father, who suffers from severe psychological illnesses. Engaging with this material has allowed her to confront and recontextualise the depth of his language. Each piece expresses his grief and fear of loss, as well as how these experiences can change the development of your brain through neuroplasticity, strengthening negative neural pathways. This collection is in response to the letter’s morbid yet poetic language to visually communicate the psychological consequences of generational trauma and its influence on emotional development. Her work translates a paragraph of significant emotional intensity from each page into a form of visual communication. She used automative mark-marking to create unpredictability, visual depth and expressive freedom. She worked on the paintings simultaneously, building them layer by layer. This approach allowed her to respond intuitively as ideas emerged and move smoothly between each piece to maintain an expansive and open-ended creative process. Each painting is titled after lines within the letter, as opposed to calligraphic visual additions. Morrigan focuses on the psychological side of being an artist and how an informed practice can serve as an emotional regulation technique for posttraumatic stress.
'A rather common occurance', Line 28, The Letter Collection IV, 152.4cm x 121.92cm, oil on canvas
'It can't be escaped', Line 59-60, The Letter Collection V, 152.4cm x 121.92cm, oil on canvas
