'Down the Line' Recent work by Erica Morgan at Wabi Sabi Warehouse

Exhibition Dates: February 27-March 20, 2009

Opening Reception:

Friday, February 27th, 7-10pm

Erica Morgan's unconventional artwork revolves around her passion for environmental awareness and sustainability. She uses materials that are both fabricated/manufactured and organic/natural to address the relationship between the two opposites and how they affect each other. All of the fabricated materials she uses are either found, like a discarded sliding glass door frame, or materials previously existing, such as vintage fabrics. The organic material is never alive or still intact with nature when she discovers it and deems it useful and the origin of location for all her materials is absolutely relevant within each piece.

Upon recently moving back to her coastal hometown of Southport, she was faced with a place not recognizable to the little girl who used to go fishing with her dad at 6am on the rocks. The rapid growth of Southport has created development that condemned memories, allowed profit to swallow nostalgia, and ultimately forced the environment to succumb to the people. Of Course, change is inevitable, and Erica understands both sides of this issue within her art.

She believes that neither the organic nor fabricated could exist without the other; just as love would not be love without hate, and life could not be life without death. They simultaneously depend on one another in order to maintain their identities while battling each other for existence. She is not trying to declare the natural or manufactured victorious over the other; because she believes that they do not have to be at odds, and should not be at odds. Ultimately, Erica establishes a balance between the two, believing that in order for society to most efficiently survive, a balance between environment and development is absolutely necessary and urgent.

'Down the line' features unconventional works that address the relationship between Erica and her hometown, her hometown and its growth, and personal relationships that have been influenced due to her hometown.

Please join us on Friday, February 27th, from 7-10pm, for a reception with the artist, and also tour the artist's studio, housed in Wabi Sabi Warehouse.