What happens when Thai goddesses, griffins, Egyptian heads, Greek urns and other elements of ancient cultures collide with television sets, cowboys with swirling lassoes, swimming pools and other modern Americana?
You get the eerily beautiful art of Susan Morrison, now on display in the Dirt Cowboy Cafe.
Morrison mingles icons of antiquity and modernity to produce vivid, collage-like "pasticci" in which one might detect the influence of de Chirico, Giacometti and other Italian surrealists.
What makes Morrison's work distinctive is her textured brushstroke and layering of paint that, when peeled and scraped away, lends a time-worn element to the surface, something like a fresco painted "a secco."
"It feels like the world is getting smaller," said Morrison, whose extensive world travel resonates in her art. Having spent time in the Mediterranean and northern Africa as well as in the art capitals of Europe, she has incorporated a variety of specifically recognizable cultural symbols into her work.
These juxtapositions of different cultures and different eras produce a quizzical outlook on the modern world.
Morrison described herself as "a mainstream Modernist," who introduced figuration into her work after a period of pure abstraction.
In her borrowings from ancient art she recreates its linear, reduced figures and largely eliminates chiaroscuro and illusions of mass and volume. Her flattened figures float on intersecting planes, awash in a world that resembles a time-traveling yard sale.
The works in the Dirt Cowboy were originally exhibited as an installation titled "Senet," produced in 1992, and arranged in a grid on one wall.
In their current deconstructed form the paintings relate less to each other but can still captivate individually. Each of the works is oil on cardboard, a departure from her earlier method of oil on canvas.
Morrison's career is the epitome of achievement. Her works belong to private and public collections, including the Aldrich Museum in Ridgefield, Conn. and Tufts University. She has had solo exhibitions at the 55 Mercer Street Gallery in New York and the Stux Gallery in Boston. Winner of numerous awards and participant in countless group exhibitions, Morrison has never slowed her productive pace.
A new resident of Windsor, Vt., Morrison said she loves the area - especially after the "hectic, intense" atmosphere of the New York City art world.
"It's easier to be a painter here," she said. "You have more time to reflect and your frame of mind is much more in tune with yourself."
While exploring the art community in the Upper Valley, Morrison works part time at Anichini, an Italian linen shop in West Lebanon, devoting the remainder of her time to painting. Her husband Tony is a landscape painter, and the two are currently constructing a studio together.
Morrison's works are on display at the Dirt Cowboy until Mar. 6.
