This Cranbrook Academy of Art lecture is free and open to the public at Cranbrook’s deSalle Auditorium. Please note that Cranbrook Art Museum’s galleries will not be open. Enter through the Cranbrook Academy of Art Library entrance.
Kristen Morgin takes an unconventional approach to ceramics; her signature Trompe l’oeil sculptures and assemblages explore personal nostalgia, obsolescence, and the American dream. Her most recent drawings on paper, previously a private part of her practice, were exhibited for the first time in 2024 with Marc Selwyn Fine Art.
Morgin’s drawings explore a wide variety of source material ranging from precise renderings of scientific images, children’s book illustrations, puppetry, and folk art, always mixing high and low culture with an intention to remove traditional hierarchies.
Her relic-like sculptures range in scale from recreations of full-size cars and orchestral instruments to tiny knick-knacks and toys, which appear as found objects but are raw, unfired clay. Substituting paint and collage for the gloss of traditional ceramic glazes, Morgin achieves a garage-sale aesthetic in which 20th-century pop culture icons like Popeye and Mighty Mouse preside and vintage playthings find new meaning.
Morgin received a BA from California State University, Hayward, and an MFA in Ceramics from Alfred University. She is a recipient of the 2011 Lamar Dodd Professorship of Art, University of Georgia, and the 2005 Joan Mitchell Award.
Morgin’s work has been shown widely in the United States and abroad. Her work is in the permanent collections of Alfred University, The Hammer Museum, San Francisco Museum of Contemporary Art, The Smithsonian American Museum of Art, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and The Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Tagged: 2025, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Lecture Series
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