Artists and art collectors are frequently guided into the American West by the culture that surrounds them. For older generations, the culture was frequently rooted in film and television, whether that was John Wayne and Gene Autry or Gunsmoke and The Lone Ranger.
And I Became the Ghost, gouache on panel, 16 x 20 in.
For Maryland-based painter Ally Morgan, who is two generations removed from nightly Westerns on black-and-white televisions, she was led into the West through a medium more familiar to her generation—video games.
“I have never lived as a cowgirl, or within that cowgirl lifestyle. I played video games, particularly Red Dead Redemption.I started by painting scenes from the game, which is how I met George Irwin at Western Gallery. The beginning of my Western journey was based in the fantasy of the West, the weird West,” Morgan says. “For me, there’s also a spiritual side, a meditative side. A lot of my work is based on a vibe and feeling. My Western vision is also slightly surreal visions, one that plays into the imagination and a little bit in the psychedelic.”
Ghosts of You, gouache on panel, 16 x 20 in.
Morgan lives in Rockville, Maryland, but first experienced the Southwest when she went to graduate school at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. The desert had an immediate effect on her and, while that found its way into her work, she admits she’s still trying to figure out where her paintings are going. One thing she does know is that her own emotions are tied to her studio on a very deep level. She points to work she completed after her father died in 2020, including paintings of large water drops suspended in her solid-colored skies. Viewers might assume they were raindrops, but for Morgan, they were tears shed for her father.
Is it Safer in the Dark, gouache on panel, 8 x 10 in.
Again, she invokes the spirituality of the West. “Those paintings were spiritual because I was trying to move past grief and trying to make happy pieces,” she says, adding that she was exposed to great art around that time. “A lot of work was really resonating with me and I wanted to try to find a way to incorporate these larger ideas.” She points to pieces that have isolated animal subjects. “I was putting animals in these empty spaces. I was navigating through loss and grief, but also finding joy in the grandness of movement and energy in the West.”
For Morgan’s newest paintings, she turns to the brightest colors possible. The show is fittingly titled Neon West.Between the vastness of the desert, the isolation of the subject and the intense hues, the new pieces shine a bright light on an exciting new Western painter.
Sunset Dance, gouache on panel, 18 x 24 in.
“What strikes me most about Ally Morgan’s Neon West is how each painting holds genuine emotion without sacrificing vitality,” says George Irwin, the gallery’s founding director. “These are works that feel of-the-moment, but carry the kind of gravitas that makes them important in the story of Western art. —
Western Gallery Austin, TX » (512) 693-8787 » western.gallery
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