Contemporary realism artist Morgan Irons shares her experience and insights on finding the stories that inspire you.
Wheat Field Theater: On Finding Story
By Morgan Irons
www.morganirons.com
One of the first paintings I made was a rudimentary image of a solo female figure leaning on the handle of a spade in a wide field. It was 8 years ago now and I didn’t know it then, but it was a first glimpse into what is now my life’s body of work. I was learning to paint and, hoping to provide a helpful limitation, painted only the people I knew and the land I lived on – a wide hay field in Montana.
One after another, this agrarian iconography appeared and provided a base for the narratives of the work. Archetypes of the steward, the Mother, the farmer, the hero, all showed up on their own volition, gratefully bringing with them their own wealth of subconscious meaning. As I developed my abilities to paint, those archetypes held the work as best they could regardless of my skill.
They say we are living in mythological times. The scale of story happening around us may or may not be unprecedented, but I feel strongly that engaging with the story is important. I am fortunate to live in the wide-expanse of Montana, a landscape ripe with myth.
One of the stories happening around me is the movement of regenerative agriculture – a plea to living in alignment with the longevity of the resources Earth provides. Soil at the forefront.
A lateral benefit of this approach is in the story and it’s protection of archetypes. Archetypes are the building-blocks of how we make meaning and they require that we engage with our roles on the land and in relation. We are all feeling the hollowness of industrial corporations and systems bereft of human engagement.
The 19th Century Realist movement subversively focused on painting rural life in a naturalistic manner, often promoting the values and roles of a direct relationship to the cycles of land-based living. These themes are highly relevant in these times.
For artists, my encouragement is to find the theater your work plays in. What are the characters, the icons and the archetypes that live there? In that inquiry is a bountiful well of work that will serve us all.
Additional Contemporary Realism Paintings by Morgan Irons
About the Artist
Born in 1991, Morgan Irons works predominantly in the medium of painting.
Primarily a self taught painter, Irons began studying painting in 2015 following her move to a rural piece of land in Montana. It was then she began studying the work of master painters and has since sought out workshops with some of the top representational painters today. A figurative painter by nature, Irons believes in painting solely what she knows best, life on the land she lives. Her paintings are narrative and timeless in theme and palette.
“I find Morgan to not only have highly developed technical painting abilities, but a burning desire to have her work represent something more than an image…she understands that true art becomes something more than itself. When I view her work I am inspired to THINK about it, to explore and ponder what poets refer to as ‘the Great Thoughts’. This is as art should be, not just clever beautiful images, but reflections upon the human condition and culture. Morgan Irons is a true artist.” -Michael Ome Untiedt
Morgan Irons has been a featured artist in Fine Art Connoisseur‘s “Artists to Watch,” Southwest Art Magazine’s “21 Under 31: Young Artists to Watch in 2017,” and Big Sky Journal‘s “Ones to Watch.” She is a two-time recipient of the 2018 Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant for emerging figurative painters. Irons is represented by Old Main Gallery in Bozeman, Montana where she currently lives and paints in a cabin on a mountaintop.
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