Popular Edinburgh-based Morningside Gallery have just announced their upcoming Jack Morrocco solo exhibition Talking Pictures.

Talking to The Herald, Morningside director Eileadh Swan explained:  “Jack’s paintings resonate and speak to people; they have stories to tell of time and of place. The dappled light of Provence, the Italian waiter, the gondola gliding through the dark glassy canals of Venice; we are instantly taken to a shared feeling or a memory, and a feeling of being there. This solo exhibition of over forty paintings spans all of Jack’s subject matter, and has many a story to tell.”

(Image: Jack Morrocco)

Jack’s description of his own work as ‘a conversation on canvas between the past and the present’ leads us beautifully into the title of this exhibition, Talking Pictures. Jack grew up ‘talking pictures; his mother was a painter, his father an architect and painter, uncles and extended family all artists or involved in the arts. Art was an ever present subject of conversation, and paintings were always being talked about.

So it has continued for Jack, a lifetime of ‘talking paintings’ with other artists, past and present, in person and through their paintings. We see these working conversations coming to life on the canvas; when embarking upon a lilypond painting it is to Monet that Jack turns, seeking out what first fascinated him all those years ago about the iridescent pads floating on the reflective, watery depths.

Almost every painter has found something to say about the streets and cafes of Paris and the bridges and canals of Venice, and so out on the Grand Canal in Venice it is John Singer Sargent’s voice that Jack hears.

(Image: Jack Morrocco) Jack’s own paintings add to this longer conversation, and speak of these time-honoured subjects in an artistic voice that is uniquely his own. They tell us about what he has found most interesting in these conversations with Monet and Singer Sargent; with Monet, the irresistible allure and challenge of painting the transparency and reflections of the lilypond, its visual unity between sky, water and vegetation.

And with Singer Sargent what interested Jack was his viewpoint – his choice to paint Venice from the water.  Engaging directly with some of these choices, Jack does something different with them, and finds something new to say.

(Image: Jack Morrocco)

Most of all though, these are paintings that reach out to the viewer, and speak of light and beauty. Morningside Gallery hope you will come to see these paintings in real life.

Please contact them for more details about the Private View and for a preview of the images. To learn more and visit the Jack Morrocco exhibition click here: https://www.morningsidegallery.co.uk/

Morningside Gallery,  94 Morningside Road
Edinburgh
EH10 4BY

0131 447 3041
art@morningsidegallery.co.uk