Born in the late 80s in Dorchester, Massachusetts, Rachel Morrissey grew up in Connecticut and received her MFA in 2016 from Massachusetts College of Art and Design. She earned a Post-Baccalaureate degree from The School of the Museum of Fine Arts in 2014 and a BFA in Studio Art from Indiana University in 2009. Morrissey is a mother of two young children and currently lives and works in Medfield, Massachusetts.
Rachel Morrissey’s narrative paintings give form and context to an invisible struggle with mental health, motherhood, fertility, pregnancy and daily life. Her paintings contain reoccurring imagery of unknowable strange plants as romantic associations for motherhood and fruitfulness, while weeds and vines represent the tension of the artist’s ongoing battle with anxiety. This playful balance of colorful imagery evokes seductive properties one moment and strangling vulnerability in the next. The human form is clearly not depicted but its presence is noted through motifs of the body. Morrissey creates these paintings through the lens and history of botanical art with a nod to childhood bedtime stories.
Morrissey hopes to seduce the viewer into this seemingly colorful, jubilant world, leading them to understand that all is not what it is seen above the surface. The motifs and patterns oscillate along the continuum of her experience as a mother finding exuberance, love and joy at one end and utter despair at the other. Morrissey’s work continues to ‘bear fruit’ as she chronicles and interprets the usual and unusual curveballs of life and motherhood through art and imagery.
2016 – MFA, Massachusetts College of Art & Design, Boston, MA
2014 – Post Baccalaureate, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
2009 – BFA Studio Art, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
2023 – New Beginnings, Two Person Exhibition at Voltz Clarke Gallery, New York, NY
2021 – Forbidden Fruit, I Like Your Work Podcast, Piano Craft Gallery, September 2021
2021 – Women in Abstraction, New Art Center Corridor at the Trio, Newton, MA
2021 – Bosscritt Daily January, Virtual Exhibition, Winter/Spring 2021
2021 – Las Laguna Art Gallery, Small Works Big Talent 1/8-1/30/2021
2020 – Every Day In August, Virtual Exhibition, Bosscritt Curitorial Club, Fall 2020
2020 – Congruence, I Like Your Work Podcast, Juried By Bridget Mayer Gallery, Summer 2020 2020 – Superfine E-fair, Summer 2020, New York, NY
2019 – 29th Annual MassArt Auction, Bakalar & Paine Galleries, Boston, MA
2016 – MFA Thesis Exhibition, Bakalar & Paine Galleries, Boston, MA
2016 – Summer GIF Show, Pink Box Collective, Online
2016 – 27th Annual MassArt Auction, Bakalar & Paine Galleries, Boston, MA
2016 – Ways to Use Walls, Student Life Gallery, Boston, MA
2016 – Creative Counterpoints: Women Difference & the Arts, Arnheim Gallery, MA
2016 – That Thing You Said, Arnheim Gallery, Boston, MA
2015 – Hurry Up & Wait 2, Aviary Gallery, Boston, MA
2015 – Hurry Up and Wait, group show, Arnheim Gallery, Boston, MA
2015 – “Bouncing in the Corner”, group show, subSamson, Boston, MA
2014 – emb2dy, Student Life Gallery, Boston, MA
2021 – Upcoming, Friend of the Artist, Volume 14
2020 – Candyfloss Magazine, Enchanted Issue, Fall 2020
2020 – Visionary Art Collective, Artist Feature & Interview, September 2020
2014 – The Doran Scholarship, Massachusetts College of Art and Design
2013 – Post Baccalaureate Grant, School of the Museum of Fine Arts
2021 – March, Dear Artists Residency
2022 – November – Stay Home Gallery & Residency
