News
Joan Morris’s first New York exhibition, Unstill Life, opened on 30 October 2024 at Brooklyn-based Studio Delson Architecture PC. The show surveyed Joan’s art textiles, drawings and prints on paper, and handmade clothing created during the past fifteen years. On 10 January 2025 Joan presented an artist talk about her Indian textile and clothing work, followed by a show of Kanthi Mathi Kalamkari, her small traditionally-inspired clothing company (studiodelson.com/events).
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During four trips to India between 2020-2024, Joan established working relationships with textile artisans in Andhra Pradesh, where kalamkari textiles have been produced for centuries using hand-cut wood blocks and plant dyes. Artisans there print the textiles on South Indian-produced cotton, and local dressmakers sew the simple clothes that Joan designs. The clothing designs are meant to showcase the cotton fabric that’s labor- intensively patterned by hand, using plant-derived materials for all aspects of the coloring.
In spring 2020, Joan began her Beautiful Dress Imaginary project, in which she drew on her lifelong collection of textiles to make the loveliest dresses she could think of at the time. That project has continued into the present. In 2021, as an outgrowth of the Beautiful Dress Imaginary project, Joan established her nascent company, Kanthi Mathi Kalamkari. This project was inspired by a wish to help keep textile hand traditions alive during the pandemic. She began by prototyping dresses, pants and dupattas (large cotton shawls) using traditional block-printed designs from South India.
In 2019 two intaglio and collagraph prints from Joan Morris's You Are the Music exhibition at Two Rivers Printmaking Studio were added to the permanent collection of the Ballinglen Museum of Art in Ballycastle, Co, Mayo, Ireland. This beautiful museum, which opened in 2020, has the largest collection of contemporary art in western Ireland.
The Ballinglen Museum of Art in Co. Mayo, Ireland opened in spring 2020.
photos: Nuala Clarke
video: Diana Fullmer
Joan had her third and fourth resident fellowships at Ballinglen Arts Foundation in County Mayo, Ireland in 2022 and 2024. She will return there in 2026. Read more about this beautiful place here:
Ballinglen Arts Foundation Fellowship & Textile Study Days in Surat, India
Winter/Spring 2017
In February and March 2017, Joan did a 6-week artist residency at Ballinglen Arts Foundation in beautiful seaside County Mayo, Ireland
In April 2017, Joan travelled to Surat, in southern Gujarat, India, where she had study days at the TAPI Collection. The TAPI Collection houses one of the world's greatest collections of Indian textiles made for trade, with textiles dating from the 14th-century. The 15th-century Coromandel Coast textile pictured here was being restored during that visit.
"Imprint of Absence", AVA Gallery and Art Center, Lebanon, NH
17 April - 20 May 2015
An exhibition of the work of Joan Morris from 2012 - 2015
“Reflections”, Kent Museum, Calais, Vermont
13 September-5 October 2014
30 Vermont artists focus on literal and contemplative ideas of reflection in sculpture, photography, printmaking, painting, and mixed media.
"mnemonikos"
Art of Memory in Contemporary Textiles
This show, which the curator Yoshiko Wada calls an exhibition exploring contemporary textiles at the molecular level, features
two art works by Joan Morris.
At the Jim Thompson Art Center, Bangkok, Thailand
22 August 2013 through 22 February 2014
This show will travel to Hong Kong Polytechnic Institute in December 2014.
In 2011 Joan Morris was the recipient of a grant from the Puffin Foundation, as well as a "Creation Grant" from the
Vermont Arts Council.
"Expressions of Liminality in the Art of Joan Morris"
September through November 2012
East Mall Pavillion at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon, NH
"Textile Works of Art 2009-2011"
One person exhibition of new work by Joan Morris
Aidron Duckworth Museum of Art, Meriden, NH
18 June-31 July 2011
Opening 18 June, 3-6 PM
"Merging Continuums: work from 2009 and 2010"
One person exhibition of new work by Joan Morris
Big Town Galley in Rochester, VT
13 October-21 November 2010
Opening 16 October, 5-7 PM
