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Born in Massachusetts, self-taught artist Josie Morway moved over 20 times in as many years before coming back to Boston to live and work in 2015. Her work has been shown in museums and galleries worldwide, from London and Australia (and streets of Juarez, Mexico) to Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, Montana and Massachusetts, as well as at fairs like Scope at Art Basel Miami. She’s also worked as a sign painter and muralist, creating large scale works for cities, businesses and festivals including POW! WOW! Worcester.
Morway’s extremely detailed style of oil and enamel painting on wood panels combines the influence of Dutch Masters’ techniques, religious icon paintings, and hyper-modern color and design elements, to create paintings that have been described as “votive cave paintings from the distant future.” The wildlife in Morway’s work is portrayed with an intense reverence that escalates to surreality, creating paintings that are both politically charged and ethereally poetic. Morway’s work explores both the fragility and the fortitude of the natural world, envisioning the sanctity of wildlife and wilderness in the face of human degradation and seeking to challenge the assumptions and projections we bring to our interactions with the wild.
Morway’s extremely detailed style of oil and enamel painting on wood panels combines the influence of Dutch Masters’ techniques, religious icon paintings, and hyper-modern color and design elements, to create paintings that have been described as “votive cave paintings from the distant future.” The wildlife in Morway’s work is portrayed with an intense reverence that escalates to surreality, creating paintings that are both politically charged and ethereally poetic. Morway’s work explores both the fragility and the fortitude of the natural world, envisioning the sanctity of wildlife and wilderness in the face of human degradation and seeking to challenge the assumptions and projections we bring to our interactions with the wild.