Morgan Gage

Stop and Smell

Lots of leaves with tiny white flowers. Morgan’s face is emerging from the bottom edge upwards, their face is cropped after the cheeks by the bottom margin. They are smelling the flowers with closed. The word “EASY” is collaged atop the leaves, these letters are bold and dark red.

“Should It be Easy?”

A car dashboard during the daytime, driving down a highway. The dash has a dried-out cactus branch containing many holes; its whole shape is two-pronged. Sitting in between the two diverging prongs is a bowl of breakfast oatmeal. The reflection of the oatmeal bowl shines off the windshield and behind that reflection is a U-Haul moving truck that shows the words “easy to tow” written on its back in all capital letters. Digitally collaged over the left side of this image is a selfie of Morgan driving the car. Their emotion is pensive. Overlapping atop the selfie is the car’s registration sticker dated 2019. This car is Morgan’s prized possession and yet it is still difficult to prioritize its maintenance. The “19” from that sticker has been digitally altered and collaged atop the red fuzzy dice which hang down from the rearview mirror.

Writing on the Wall

Morgan is standing in front of a sandy brown-colored rock wall and wearing hiking clothes. They are not emotionally expressive. Morgan’s arms are raised upwards, bending like triangles, hands gripping the rim of their sunhat, and the hat casts a slight shadow over their eyes. Digitally collaged atop of this image is a drawing, non-representational and sketchy lines, the line work is lime green on the left half and fiery red on the right half.

don’t expect much of me

Photo collage composition of a film image of an Iphone and a fanny pack sitting on top of sleeping bags (there are visible fingerprints on the Iphone screen). Atop that image is the handwritten words

which have been added over the Iphone. In the center of the composition the dictionary definition of the word ‘expect (verb)’ has also been collaged in. The definition reads: “to think or believe that something will happen or that somebody will do something.”

Doodlegrass

Digital collage of a piece of paper (with non-representational, sketchy squiggling shape) outputs to reveal an image underneath of a left hand pointing towards long blades of grass.

Blue Tree--What does that make Me?

Morgan’s left hand pointing their finger into the frame towards a large branch of live evergreen needles. The color of this tree is blueish and it’s illuminated using flash. An image of Morgan standing upon a concrete rock between two poles has been layered over the lower righthand corner of the composition. They are making a funny face with furrowed eyebrows and pointing at themself with their right hand.

Outside

Selfie of Morgan in a dark space. The right side of Morgan’s shoulder and half of their face is illuminated by an unseen light source. Their left hand rests flat on their chest. Digitally collaged on the top left corner is a branch of evergreen needles. The top of the composition features a collaged strip that is a forest overlaid by a box of text which reads:

O.K.Sunset

Image is a film photograph of the sun setting, the sky is nearly all dark. The blackness of a horizon divides across the center of the picture downwards. The sun is in the center of the image, a tiny yellow circle, shining orange onto a bit of cloud above it. The shadow of a left hand reaches out and encircles the sun with the pointer finger and thumb in an O.K. motion.

Truth or Consequences

A slightly ajar door with yellow light streaming through the crack. There is a thin vertical red flare on the left side of the screen. Digitally collaged handwritten notes read:

[start quote]

[end quote]

‘around

A film photograph that was overexposed on the bottom (light yellow), underexposed on the top (dark blue and purple), with a red flare between them. In the center of an image, you can see the faint impression of Morgan’s figure. They are wearing a white corset around the waist, looking over the top of their glasses. Both arms are raised overhead and gripping some sort of rope/chain which is taut on both sides of their body-- there is a faint impression of the rope extending from the top of the frame down to around their waist. (Truth be told I was sitting on a swing). A digitally collaged frame of thin bars has been created around the edges. The frame is made up of plant images that have been patchworked together and overexposed/oversaturated into an assortment of day-glow colors.

Forgot I was Filled with Flowers

Film selfie of Morgan with yellow, pink, and purple-y colored pressed and dried flowers on top. Their left hand is resting on their cheek, long fingers relaxed and slightly longer than their chin. 

Morgan collected these buds off trails where flowers had already fallen off their stems or picked by people who had walked the trails before but left the flowers behind.

Racing the sun...chasing its Set

A film photograph of a desert mountainside (red/yellow stone). There is a tall ridge, with flat walls, that runs along until turning into two stand-alone pinnacles. They cast a hard shadow down the hill below them. Collaged overlay on the right is a film photo of a window, specifically the window on the door of a tour bus, that has a long frame that’s kinda pointed at its top. In the reflection of this window Morgan is standing outside, holding the camera up next to their body. They are wearing overalls and a white face mask. Handwritten text from a thin pen has been collaged over the sky, it reads:

there is a gap of space followed by a bit more text:

Driven

The view from inside a car. The steering wheel is on the left, and to the right is an assortment of items reflected in the car’s windshield. Digitally collaged on the left is a selfie of Morgan sitting in the driver’s seat (perspective of camera is looking at them from the passenger side). Morgan is resting their face on their partially closed right fist, and their left arm is draped over the steering wheel. Morgan shows a drained expression on their face. They are wearing a red vest & beige baseball cap. The image has been copy and pasted atop itself to create the appearance of a double-exposure.

Open Window

A wooden window and interior adobe-colored walls in low light. It has 4 rectangular (horizontal) panes and each of these contains a division of 6 (all vertical rectangles, 2 rows of 3 across). Behind/outside this window is a view of Pedernal, which is a flat top mesa mountain in New Mexico that was made famous through the affections of painter Georgia O’Keeffe whilst she lived on Ghost Ranch.

REST STOP (17 miles southwest of Santa Fe)

Oil pastel drawing on orange paper. The artwork is a plein air (done in person at the location) and it depicts a field, a tall hill, and a purple mountain range on the far horizon. The environment is desert with short bushes and yellow grass. On the bottom left are two lines drawn vertically towards the horizon. The lines are dotted with yellow and red meant to represent the road that leads in and out of the city.