STATEMENT OF WORK

Pol Morton is a chronically ill non-binary artist making assemblage paintings and sculptures about queerness, transness, and disability. From heart and blood conditions and arthritis to bicycle accident concussions and quasi-cancerous tumors, from kidney stones to burst ovarian cysts, their physical existence and limitations have always been part of their daily life. Through oil paint and collaged clusters of low-relief personal and medical refuse, personal documentary photography, and found objects, Morton plays with the beauty of injury, infection, and recovery. Their work takes on intimate, quotidian moments—lying in bed, taking a bath, walking around the city of New York with a cane, and staring at doves having sex through the window. Sequin patches stand in for scars, surrounded by rainbows of oil paint celebrating the beauty of pink and red inflammation, purple bruising, and yellow pus. All collaged photos in the works are taken by the artist while bedbound and on physical therapy walks. These photos are interspersed with cat hair, body prints, walking cane tips, the artist’s pubic hair, the artist’s own used medical devices (including their walking canes and wheelchair wheels), and other personal objects. Though collage and assemblage-heavy, Morton’s hand is not absent. Lines drawn and oil painted trace their walking cane and delineate the slashes of scars and wounds from the artist’s body, both old and current. Morton’s work is about having an unreliable body, addressing the dissociation and fragility of flesh that is in a constant state of unwellness while building a visceral reality that is playful, humorous, and idiosyncratic.