Devin N. Morris. Play Too Much

About

The events that occur within this seemingly private space position the subjective body to be confronted, welcomed and familiarized over time. Framing borderless spaces, Play Too Much considers standing furniture and domestic environments in relationship to transcendence, performance, ownership, innocence and desire. Morris builds environments in ways similar to a contractor each surface considered for its purpose and engineered to withstand use. However, unlike a contractor, Morris reimagines the operative properties of domestic objects as narrative surfaces and honors past experiences, deceased elders, disease and familial relations. Constructing tender exchanges, emotionally rendered figures daydream domestic mobility, fraternal and otherwise. Queer environments, rarely found, are more insistently exposed. 

Having moved often in his childhood, Morris posits familiar but distant narratives that exist beyond the frame as forever spaces. Figures are laid bare — revealed to the histories that structure their environments. In sacred, private settings, they explore and reckon with partnership through innocent exchanges. Seeking innocence, a quality of perspective Morris felt denied to him after the murder of a close family member, is an act of reclamation for the artist. Play Too Much is an alarm, like a rooster’s crow come morning; you remember its reverberation but not always what day or event the sound announces. Nonetheless the call is dangerously present and effortlessly familiar each time you hear and at that moment, you know something must occur.