Some people might call me really into the internet (partially for work), other people would call me an online sleuth, my boyfriend refers to me as a “Page 5 Googler,” which I take as a term of endearment. However you slice it, sometimes I go pretty far down the rabbit hole of links and in a lot of cases those start with Facebook Friends gathered from near and far. I found artist, Musette Morgan, through that very activity and I’m very glad.
Musette is a contemporary painter based in New York City and while the painters I usually feature are painting barns or seascapes, Musette’s treatment of still lifes for some reason reminds me of my mother and her kitchen, which is lined with paintings of fruits and veggies.
I like that she uses generally neutral backgrounds and foregrounds and lets the majority of the color and vibrancy of her pieces come out in the edibles themselves.
While this is incidental it is also fun for me that she paints veggies that I’m particularly a fan of including turnips, radishes, onions, shallots, rutabaga, etc.
Her work reminds me of my senior year painting teacher as well who used to always tell me to pick up a larger, wider brush, that you could create relatable imagery without having to use such a tiny paintbrush based in realism. I find Musette’s pieces extremely recognizable and relatable and yet her brushstrokes are also visible.
I recently put up a large vintage potato sack in our kitchen, one with a cool logo on it that I picked up at Laurel’s Landless Garden demonstration last week but we still have another wall in the kitchen that we could line with these food themed pieces. I saw one clip on Musette’s news page that listed a smaller work around $450, which seems wonderfully accessible for these amazing pieces!
Still lifes are not the end game though, she also paints wonderful landscapes and portraits. While I’ve been looking a lot of local New England artisans lately, Musette is actually from Memphis, Tennessee and went to school at UNC before heading to New York. Maybe it’s the South to North move that allows her to have such a cool approach to hot and cold tonal areas of her paintings – though I bet it’s just skill.
The above piece makes me wonder if she paints only en plein air or also from photographs, it would be awesome to send her a picture from the farm and have her do a large canvas for my folks!
Tags: landscapes, NYC, painting, seascapes, still-life, Tennessee