Artist Statement

I am interested in what happens when a familiar image is rebuilt. Art history gives me a shared visual language - a set of figures, poses, and compositions that many viewers already carry with them. I use that recognition as a starting point rather than an endpoint.

In the Art History works, I return to well-known paintings and reinterpret them through my own material vocabulary. Acrylic and layered paint let images shift between control and accident; drips can obscure a face, sharpen a gesture, or turn a historic composition into something immediate. Neon introduces a different kind of mark. It leaves the surface, occupies the room, and changes how color is felt as well as seen.

Across portraits, geometric paintings, rock paintings, neon pieces, and installations, I am looking for tension between the inherited and the present, the pictorial and the physical. I want the work to feel recognizable but unsettled: an encounter with an image you may know, transformed through movement and color.

For commission and all other inquiries, contact Morgan Sims at morgan.sims@gmail.com.

CV

Education

2010 — Master of Fine Arts, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Madison, WI/USA

2004 — Bachelor of Fine Arts, University of Washington, Seattle, WA/USA

Selected exhibitions

2024 — Heavy Drip, Bertrand Productions, Philadelphia, PA/USA (solo)

2023 — Prism, Bertrand Productions, Philadelphia, PA/USA (solo)

2023 — Art on Paper, Bertrand Productions, New York, NY/USA (group)

2021 — Untitled Art Fair, Bertrand Productions, Miami, FL/USA (group)

2020 — Camouflage for Earth, Bert Green Fine Art, Chicago, IL/USA (solo)

2017 — Magnet Dust, Bert Green Fine Art, Chicago, IL/USA (solo)

2015 — Metropolis, Bert Green Fine Art, Chicago, IL/USA (solo)

Collections & commissions

2024 — Private commissions, Brooklyn, NY/USA and Boston, MA/USA

2022 — Private commission, Dallas, TX/USA

2021 — Private commissions, Riyadh/Saudi Arabia and Gainesville, FL/USA

2020 — Private commissions, Chicago, IL/USA

2017 — Neiman Marcus, Paramus, NJ/USA & MIN Art Collection, Mexico City/Mexico

2016 — Neiman Marcus, White Plains, NY/USA

2015 — BMO Harris Bank, Chicago, IL/USA

2014 — Neiman Marcus, Dallas,TX/USA

2012 — Neiman Marcus, Chicago, IL/USA

2006 — Seattle Portable Works, Seattle, WA/USA

Press

2024 — https://shoutoutla.com/meet-morgan-sims-artist

2024 — https://www.axios.com/local/philadelphia/2024/02/16/artist-morgan-sims-drip-philly-art

2013 — https://art.newcity.com/2013/07/30/portrait-of-the-artist-morgan-sims/