Morgan Drawdy

Morgan Drawdy, from Cumming, Georgia, is a Fine Art Studio Concentration student who specializes in sculpture and mixed media. The concepts of her pieces primarily focus on human interactions and relationships and her choice of medium has great variety and is dependent on the concept that she wishes to create. In the fall of 2020, she will attend the Georgia Institute of Technology to pursue a career in Industrial Design, specifically focusing on health care.

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Artist Statement

Pathways

My work is the representation of longing and grief. I am inspecting how the loss of a loved one affects future major life events. The purpose is to invite the viewer to reflect on their lives and the people they love.

The experience of losing my father this past November inspired me to create five Plexiglas panels that represent connection and expression with myself, my future and past experiences, and with the viewers. The five stages of the grieving process influenced the number of panels created. Each of the 5 stages are experienced intermittently which inspired the images displayed on each panel. Each panel holds a different image of a typical life event in many people’s lives. The images displayed are college graduation, motherhood, marriage, homeownership, and professional success. The concept of creating life and death simultaneously through past and future experiences has influenced my ideas about death and the representation of it. It is not always black and white, but instead a gray area if formed through the transition of carrying someone who has passed on with you through life. Candy Chang created the piece, “Before I die…” that inspired me through its optimism. In the piece Candy writes, “Before I die I want to….” on a wall and hundreds of people write in what they want to do before they die. By taking the death of a loved one and turning it into something that is reflective of my life, journey, and what lies ahead for me, despite this grief that I am feeling, really inspired the creation of the imagery in my piece. I want to include a glimmer of hope, acceptance, and reflection with these life events that I am representing.

While creating images of the future, I am recollecting moments that I know my father will be there for in spirit. It is a way of continuing to create pathways with my father, even though he is not physically present to experience it. I invite the viewer to observe each overlapping image and reminisce on their own emotions and experiences involving each event.

Project Description

The experience of losing my father this past November inspired me to create five Plexiglas panels that represent connection and expression with myself, my future and past experiences, and with the viewers. The five stages of the grieving process influenced the number of panels created. Each of the 5 stages are experienced intermittently which inspired the images displayed on each panel.