Madame Morison

Television (Full Length) – 2005

This Artsville profile of Christchurch artist Julia Morison was made in 2005, the year she became an Arts Laureate. Morison is filmed in her studio, “forming order from the chaos of her materials”. She explains how her tools and materials guide her image making — which in her 30 year career, has ranged across a variety of media. The film also features collaborations with fellow artist Heather Straka, including a photographic project entitled Madame & the Bastard and a series of mysterious 30 second films. At the time of this interview, Julia was a senior lecturer at Ilam School of Fine Arts.

For me her work has always shimmied between opposites actually. And what I mean there is she works between or along a continuum that has a figurative basis or end, and a much more overtly abstract form.
– Art dealer Jonathan Smart on Julia Morison's art, early in this report