Features

What material are you most excited about working with in your studio right now, and how is it showing up in your current practice?

During the Painting and Mixed Media Residency at SVA, I had the opportunity to try mixed media to the fullest extent. The work I created during that time allowed me to work at the intersection of graphite and watercolor, alongside mixed media elements like gouache, embroidery, and gold leaf. Graphite allows me to render figures with intimacy and emotional specificity. It captures subtle expressions, stillness, and interiority. Watercolor allows more vibrant and ethereal environments, alongside layered media. In totality, my works represent ancestral memory, spiritual presence, and speculative futures. I’m especially interested in how these mediums reflect the tension in my work between softness and strength, past and future, seen or unseen.

How has your practice evolved since completing the residency, and are there specific experiences or conversations from that time that continue to shape your work today?

The residency gave me the space to define my practice with greater clarity and intention. Before that time, my work was deeply rooted in social justice and visual narratives of resistance, which remains important to me and was part of my professional background. But during the residency, I began to shift toward exploring interiority, ancestry, and emotional liberation on a more personal level. One of the most impactful aspects was the studio visits and conversations with faculty and visiting speakers. They encouraged me to think not just about individual works, but about building a cohesive visual language and long-term trajectory as an artist. That’s when I began incorporating genealogy research and archival collage into my work, and more consciously exploring Afrofuturism as a framework for imagining liberated futures. That shift continues to shape everything I’m creating today.

Can you talk about a recent project, exhibition, or body of work that feels especially significant or challenging for you?

A body of work that feels especially significant right now explores figures in states of spiritual and emotional transition. Those nuanced, human moments of emerging, resting, or holding space between worlds. What has been both challenging and meaningful is allowing the work to be quieter and more introspective. Earlier in my career, my work often spoke outward to call out systems. Now, I’m also allowing it to speak inward as a love letter to healing, rest, and possibility. Presenting this work in my own gallery space has been especially powerful, because it allows me to create an environment where viewers can engage with the work more intentionally. Seeing people emotionally connect to my work, and sometimes see themselves or their ancestors reflected in it, has been deeply affirming.

How has your career developed since the residency, and what directions or opportunities are you most excited about moving forward?

The residency was a catalyst. It accelerated my growth to expand my practice more intentionally. Since then, I’ve opened my own gallery space back home in Pittsburgh, continued exhibiting my work, and deepened my relationship with the New York art community. For example, I was part of a group show at the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition a month after the residency concluded. I’ve also been focused on developing cohesive bodies of work that further define my visual language. I’m excited about opportunities to exhibit more broadly, participate in additional residencies, and continue building relationships with galleries and institutions. Ultimately, my goal is to continue creating work that exists in dialogue with both history and possibility, and to allow my practice to expand in ways that feel aligned and sustainable.

What advice would you give to current or future residents about making the most of their time in the program?

I would encourage residents to use the residency to not only produce work, but to also truly reflect on who they are as artists and what they want their practice to become. The residency is a rare opportunity to step into your purpose. I would also encourage them to be open, whether to conversations, to feedback, and to unexpected discoveries of New York City. Some of the most meaningful growth happens in those moments! And finally, I would say to trust yourself. Allow yourself to take up space, experiment, and fully inhabit that moment because it could plant seeds for a bountiful harvest. 

We caught up with Morgan & talked all about the program, her process, and got a glimpse into her studio where all the magic happens. Missed our talk? Watch in full below.