Sofa Study (9)

Morag is a British portrait artist interested in what links us together as humans. Her figurative drawings celebrate the routine and mundane behaviours and poses we all assume. Her relatable portraits often play out in sequences, giving the sense of more than one day being described at a time or of the passing of time. The work seeks to examine "the authentic self" through depicting candid posture, body language, and expressions, both as a crowd or an individual. She currently uses soft pastel and oils on paper or calico to create interesting tones and marks.

Morag graduated from the University of Brighton in 2019 and is now working in London, having spent a brief time in Albania for her first solo show in Tirana. She has work in The Soho House permanent collection and in 2021 Morag was announced as one of six winners of The Curators EROS Project Award and was shortlisted for The Self-Portrait Award hosted by The Ruth Borchard Collection as well as exhibiting extensively worldwide. She has also won Sky's Portrait Artist of The Year 2022.

"Painting gives small but intense bursts of clarity, like having moments of access to an entire secret landscape that's existing somewhere out of sight. I just want to see it again and again and each new painting might take me closer to it, like going to the same spot every day because there was a time you were sure you saw a mermaid there. Each work always has the chance for it to happen again, and each time it's over it's hard to believe the feeling was there, but you're left with the memory of it and with the certainty that something you don't understand exists." — Morag Caister