Morag Caister
Degree: Painting
University: University of Brighton
Graduation Year: 2019
New Blood Art Commentary
Morag Caister’s work depicts human nature in all its glory, chaos, and vulnerability. Her figural compositions use loose brushwork to draw attention to the ways our bodies and faces often reveal our innermost emotions. The deep affection she has for her subjects is palpable; unassuming figures on their commutes home are given Caister’s full attention, where their worries and dreams are given centre stage. Abstracted from their surroundings, emphasis is on the eyes, the hands, and what the most minimal of mark-making can convey. The effect is both intriguing and touching, as Caister particularly using colours such as golden yellows to add an underlying warmth to pieces. Between her graphic and painterly work, she asks the viewer to think about thinking itself – how even in our most private moments, we are often closer to each other than we think.
Artist Statement
Morag Caister (born 1994) is a British painter graduating from the University of Brighton in 2019, and is currently working between the UK and Albania while she prepares for her first solo show in Tirana as well as The Other Art Fair in London. Morag is currently listed as an Investable Artist by online gallery New Blood Art, and was named in the 'Best of 2021' by London Paint Club. In 2021 Morag was announced as one of six winners of The Curators EROS Project Award and was shortlisted for The Self-Portrait Award hosted by The Ruth Borchard Collection as well as exhibiting extensively. Morag painted celebrity Maître D'hôtel Fred Sirieix and Booker Prize winner Bernardine Evaristo as a semi-finalist in the 2020 series of Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year, and most recently was included in the new Portrait Artist of the Year exhibition at Compton Verney curated by Kathleen Soriano. In 2022 Morag has been shortlisted for The Football Art Prize with her portrait 'Match Of The Day', and her piece 'Self-Portrait With Bad Posture' has been selected for the permanent collection of the brand new Soho House Brighton opening later this year, by Soho House Head Curator Kate Bryan. Morag will have a booth at The Other Art Fair, London in March, and her first solo show 'Looking For Peace' will open at Gallery 70 in May.
Morag is interested in what links us together, maintaining a figurative and portrait based practice focusing on routine and automatic behaviour within relatable, resting imagery that has a sense of more than one day being described at a time. The work seeks to describe our familiarities and authentic nature of ourselves through candid posture, body language and expressions, as a crowd or an individual. Sometimes this is explored by direct representation in the form of a portrait, and other times the work is more lucid and colours and shapes make up the expressive qualities in her paintings. Morag sometimes uses an unusual technique of crumbling soft pastel or pigment into chalk house paint to get the desired tones in her portraits. Other usual materials are oils, pastels, paper and raw canvas or calico.
Solo Exhibitions
(2022) Looking For Peace, Gallery 70, Tirana, Albania
Group Exhibitions
(2022) Winter Exhibition, D31 Gallery, Doncaster, UK
(2022) Portrait Artist Of The Year, Compton Verney, Warrick
(2022) The Football Art Prize, Touchstones Rochdale, The Millennium Gallery, Sunderland Museum & Winter Garden, Rochdale, Sheffield, Sunderland, UK
(2021) Fresh Perspectives, LONDON PAINT CLUB, London
(2021) Works on Paper 3, Blue Shop Cottage, London
(2021) The Self-Portrait Prize, The Ruth Borchard Collection, London
(2021) Altered, Brighton Fringe, Brighton
(2021) Forces of Nature, Gallery 94, Glyndebourne
(2021) Figurative Art Now, Mall Galleries, London
(2021) EROS, The Curators, New York
(2020) Fair Ground, Gallery 94, Glyndebourne
(2020) Allie, Joe, Morag, Destil Creative Hub, Tirana
(2019) Free Range, Truman Brewery, London
(2019) Degree Show, Grande Parade Gallery, Brighton
(2019) Material Practices, Hove Museum, Hove
(2018) Conjecture, Grande Parade Gallery, Brighton
(2017) ...&..., Destil, Tirana
Competitions, Prizes & Awards
(2020) Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year, Semi-Finalist
(2021) Ruth Borchard Self-Portrait Prize, Shortlisted
(2021) The Curators EROS Project, Winner
Original works:
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