When my partner and I got our dog, Bodie, the people fostering him before us said they thought he didn’t shed. As the wispy loose hairs that stuck to the surface of these paintings betray, that turned out to be very untrue. It isn’t for lack of trying-- I clean every Sunday especially because I can’t stand going into the work week with dog hair tumbleweeds piling up in the corners of the room. The vacuum gets completely clogged with the stuff after one quick pass on the living room rug. When I see the hair tornado trapped in the vacuum chamber I always think that I could build a whole second dog. Most pet owners can attest that no sooner is it all swept away that it seems to spontaneously regenerate in place.
Maintenance makes meaning, despite the anxiety produced when the dishes are piling up. I cook lunch only to have to turn around four hours later, hungry again, get the cutting board back out and fix dinner. I go to the dentist and six months later (or a year or two or so) I go again. I’m in a Walgreens deciding between allergy pills. I’m at the Rite-aid trying to get Tums but they’re locked up behind the plexiglass and I don’t want to wait for the guy to come unlock it. I don’t know if melatonin helps me go to sleep or if I just need to convince myself that I’m doing something about falling asleep. I take myself to the virtual doctor’s visit, take my dog to the vet for flea medication, take my car to the shop so it’s safer to drive; these are surely the labors of love I’ve been hearing about.
-Erin Morris

Erin Morris’ paintings snapshot and crop moments without regard for mundanity or sentiment. In democratizing the hierarchy of time and emphasizing the margins of a scene, Morris creates a sense of affection for the peripheral, inviting the viewer to experience her work as a fusion of the sacred and the banal.

Erin Morris (b. 1994) is an artist and children’s art educator born in Latrobe, PA and raised predominantly in central North Carolina. She is currently based in Brooklyn NY. Morris received her MFA from The University of Pennsylvania in 2024 and her BFA from The Cooper Union in 2017. Erin Morris was recently shown in NY at Greene Naftali in On Landscape. She has participated in group shows at Helena Anrather and the EFA Project Space in New York. Morris's work has also
been exhibited in Berlin and Los Angeles most recently at Quarters gallery in a two-person exhibition with Cameron Cameron.