Bag Lady

About the Work

From the Artist

My earliest prints at Brandywine [Workshop and Archives, Philadelphia, in 1985] related to festivities such as Carnival (Brazil), Mardis Gras (New Orleans), Jonkonnu (Jamaica), and other Caribbean and American African-based festivals, with their spectacular imagery and costumes. As in such festivals, my earlier prints were tinged with Eurocentric pageantry, costumes, and religions, although African ancestral imagery predominated. The prints were also inspired by music, such as African music, Caribbean music, and Jazz. From music I learned how to think ahead to avoid confusion as I planned. And from music I learned how to make complex compositions and to improvise. Some of my earlier compositions may seem chaotic at first (not unlike some music) but become more understandable to the patient viewer. Through music I learned how to make form and color pulsate and reverse position and direction in visual counterpoint. However, whereas such things are the essence of music they are merely factors that support imagery in my prints. I don’t try to make visual music. My art is not music but is affected by it. My recent prints are more narrative than the earlier ones. In some of these later prints [made between 1993 and 2012] I use imagery such as Yoruba Ibeji figures, tropical plants, animals, landscape, musical instruments and ceremonial objects along with human figures. In these more recent prints, I create stories and make complex compositions that are still inspired by music, but which are more literal in content. The stories embedded in my more recent prints are my own creation about the African Diaspora: life and fantasy of people of African descent worldwide.  
_{—From Brandywine Workshop and Archives records}

Bag Lady, by Keith A. Morrison, is a color offset lithograph in an edition of 100. Morrison, a Jamaican artist, investigates and reinterprets symbols from African, Caribbean, and African American cultures. Bag Lady comments on mythology, African diasporic culture, and states of consciousness gained through knowledge of African religions. Morrison's work is characterized by the free association of dreams and childhood memories. He is known for his vibrant signature style and use of space. Morrison represented Jamaica at the Venice Biennale in 2001.
_{—Adapted from "Fresh, Human and Personal: Signature of Brandywine Workshop," Three Decades of American Printmaking: The Brandywine Workshop Collection (Manchester, VT: Hudson Hills Press, 2004)}