The press of Heather & Ivan Morison
Publication: Headline: Picture captions: Caption: "Ivan Morison Flower Stall 2002" "Study for Colours in Ivan Morison’s Garden Summer 2002". Editorial: "By Emma Safe Spring is always hectic for some gardeners, weeds are voracious, seeds need sowing, early vegetables need cropping and there is the ever present worry that spring flowering bulbs will be confused by the lousy weather and won’t turn up until late summer. This year, artist cum gardener Ivan Morison had the additional pressure of a garden public view with loads of botanical and art enthusiasts expecting to behold 1000 bulbs that he planted last Autumn in full bloom during several open days back in May. But nature refuses to be timetabled and Morison’s blooms failed to observe their scheduled deadlines for Ikon’s off site project. When none of the flowers showed in time for the opening (although they did bloom eventually) Morison resorted to sticking cut flowers into the ground and creating bespoke tissue paper flora for his rhododendrons. This comic mix or art and artifice is Morison’s trademark, not really a gardener, florist, nor a vegetable wholesaler and certainly no purist paper will splash colour in a garden as well as a peony more than anything Morison’s art is theatrical role play. In Colours and Sounds in Ivan Morison’s Garden Spring 2002, a looped video projected onto two sides of a small screen suspended in Ikon’s tower, visitors get a preview of Morison pottering around in his garden. Naked except for sun hat and gardening gloves, we watch the artist wander dreamily around his Elysian idyll, picking flowers and turning to beckon us into the greenhouse. This unnervingly bucolic scenic is accompanied by a soundtrack of tweeting birds and the contented strains of a sunny afternoon brass band. Our vision of a perfect English country garden, is however, shattered as we realise that the birds are singing along to the brass band and that the unnaturally hazy flowers are juxtaposed this idyllic vision is a cleverly stage-crafted ruse. Morison took up gardening only a year and a half ago, renting a plot in Westbourne Road Leisure Gardens Edgbaston, Birmingham where, for just £25 a year, he gains a permanent space to make and exhibit his work his flowers and vegetables at a fraction of most artists’ studio costs. Morison initially acquired the garden to house his MA piece a scaled-down replica of Derek Jarman's Dungeness home, Prospect Cottage complete with timber slats, yellow window frames and outdoor sculptures, though in Morison’s case, not weathered found objects but modelled figurines of popular icons such as Marilyn Monroe and Elvis. Now these gawky clay effigies lie neglected in the undergrowth since Morison has given up sculpture for horticulture. By early June, most of Morison’s blooms fake or otherwise have died back, but the spring colours are immortalised within his tiny Prospect Cottage which now functions as a wendy-house studio. Inside, detailed colour descriptions of his Spring flowers are noted with reference to 40s colour identification cards, alongside bird watching books, scribbled notes, magnifying glasses and cuttings from horticulture periodicals everything the budding botanist could need to improve and label his art of cultivation. Morison’s garden project has already expanded beyond the enclosures of garden 114. Besides bored rail commuters looking into the garden from the embankment above and children throwing stones at his greenhouse, city dwellers have also enjoyed Morison’s garden from a distance. For the past year the artist has sent his gardening updates on smartly printed card to recipients living even in the most concrete-bound of urban locations. Crisp white cards announce his latest horticultural exploits: ‘Last week Ivan Morison spread one tonne of horse manure over his garden.’ Or, ‘Ivan Morison is disappointed with his crop of Red Flare cabbages. Suffering from slug attack, poor soil and a shaded position they never stood a chance...’ Morison describes his failures and successes with equal attention to detail. His garden is also recorded on film and in tight observational drawings, his skill as an illustrator honed as a result of attending part-time classes in horticultural illustration. Although reporting true events, the authenticity of Morison’s gardening mail outs, drawings and videos is less significant than their philanthropic function. By disseminating the daily trials of a gardener, making drawings and offering public screenings of his project, Morison creates a developing garden in the imagination, transporting city dwellers through a portal to an allotment which may or may not exist somewhere in Birmingham’s city centre a virtual leisure garden that everyone can share. Most recently Morison has been trying his hand at floristry. For two consecutive weekends coinciding with National Gallery Week and the Jubilee Bank Holiday, Morison set up his Flower Stall at the entrance to Ikon Gallery ordering flowers from Amsterdam through Birmingham wholesale markets and shipping in a blooming display of gerberas, germini and dahlias. Inside his art garden Morison might nurture a relaxed mix of floral form and function with a healthy smattering of weeds and witty paper imitations more Gertrude Jekyll than Capability Brown but, in his adopted persona as flower seller, his horticultural aesthetic is transformed into a showy display of vibrant floral perfection, so bizarrely flawless that again Morison makes us question whether what we see is actually real. Akin to an earlier performance as a vegetable seller for Norwich Gallery’s Outwardbound exhibition, Morison absorbs himself entirely in his adopted role, taking the aesthetics of his changing barrow displays very seriously. His earnestness pays off: he has had several; offers to make his flower stall into a long-term commercial venture and is considering siting it as permanent artwork Ikon’s forecourt. Morison’s carefully composed floral arrangements and garden parties might sit easily under the umbrella of processed based, socially minded practice but his art engages equally with the less fashionable, more traditional artistic concerns of colour and composition and form. Maybe more artists will catch on and take up floristry. In our conceptual age perhaps horticultural is one of the last remaining arenas where artists can indulge in the unadulterated delights of colour and composition without fear of reproach simultaneously gaining plaudits for their community-focused floral displays and socio-political mindfulness into the bargain. Colours and Sounds in Ivan Morison’s Garden, Spring 2002, was at the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham April 17 to June 4, Flower Stall was at the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham May 25, 26 and May 31 to June 3. Outwardbound was at the Norwich Gallery, Norwich School of Art and Design, May 2 to June 8. Ivan Morison’s garden can be viewed by appointment."
Emma Safe is an art critic.
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