Morgan Cameron has always drawn—and growing up visiting her grandfather’s 100-acre farm and attending dressage camps, horses were a favorite subject.
When she left for college, spending a year at the University of Maine and another year at the Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts, she was introduced to the movement of disrupted realism, which she felt went hand-in-hand with painting animals. 
Thicket, oil on panel, 10 x 8"
“I’m drawn to movement,” she explains. “I like to make my creatures look like they are moving, twitching slightly, and the space around them is always moving. Disrupted realism really lends itself to that vibe.”
After years of mostly painting horses, Cameron’s upcoming solo exhibition at Abend Gallery represents a departure. She says, “There’s just one horse painting in this show currently, and I’ve really tried to explore a variety of animals.” 
Irish Ram, oil on panel, 6 x 6"
Lately, she has been particularly drawn to birds—the way they move and their brightly colored feathers make them an ideal subject matter for her style. Flight depicts a pigeon, but instead of a doddering city bird, it features a powerful and glamorous creature in motion.
“I fell in love with a reference photo. It was in a city, and it was very colorful. I was on a bird kick, and I couldn’t help myself,” Cameron says. “It was a bird I had never painted before, and I love the way it turned out. It had so much movement.”
Flight, oil on panel, 12 x 12"
The idea for Irish Ram was conceived of just after St. Patrick’s Day. “I wanted to paint something with a really vibrant green, which I really hadn’t done before,” she says. She stumbled on a stock photo of a ram, and the quintessentially Irish animal paired perfectly with her chosen color palette.
Cameron is not just expanding her horizons by painting new subject matter—she’s also incorporating more landscapes into the backgrounds of her works.
“I’ve done a lot of pieces that focus purely on the animal itself, and there will just be a little bit of a branch or a hint of landscape,” she explains. 
Wanderer, oil on panel, 30 x 40"
In Wanderer, a bison is in the foreground with a mountainous Western landscape behind it. Cameron adds, “This style is more abstracted and making gestures at a landscape that doesn’t take away from the animals themselves is a real challenge. I’ve been trying to push myself in that direction.”
Cameron’s show will be on view September 4 to 25. —
Abend Gallery
1261 Delaware Street, Suite 2 • Denver, CO 80204
(303) 355-0950 • www.abendgallery.com
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