Introduction

Clear, Deep, Dark features new works by Julie Morel. Morel’s work examines the intersections between text and visual imagery. She utilizes technology, books, typography and drawings to realize the relationships between text and image. Another important aspect of Morel’s projects is that they are never insular. Most involve collaborations with other artists, writers, and designers. The exhibition will include new works created for the Hawn Gallery as well as pieces previously shown in galleries abroad from her AFK and Electrical Drawings series.

In Morel’s newest body of work, Clear, Deep, Dark, Morel takes inspiration from the darknet, a term referring to the hidden side of the internet that deals with illicit transactions, sharing of sensitive information, and protecting human rights. She builds upon her Electrical Drawings (2015) series, incorporating new terms connected to the darknet in her work and examines what becomes of physical objects when they take on new lives in the digital realm. The redisplay of Morel's work alongside her newest series generates a unique context for the pieces, encouraging new conversations between the objects and viewers.

Exhibition Statement

Julie Morel’s Clear, Deep, Dark series slowly unfolds and reveals itself as the viewer draws closer to each piece, bridging the physical and theoretical distance between the artwork and viewer. Clear, Deep, Dark builds upon Morel’s earlier conductive ink drawings, incorporating new terms related to the Darkent – an overlay network that gives users access to the hidden side of the internet. Morel’s work examines the transformation of objects and their versions – how objects’ physical forms transmute into intangible ones in the digital sphere, only to be seen and not touched. Morel’s concept of versions is prescient as we see the shift of objects moving onto online platforms as well as our own lives, preferring digital interfaces to human ones. As Morel simultaneously displays artwork in the Hawn Gallery and digitally hides corresponding pieces online and in private spaces, she reveals what is lost through an object’s new version. The conductive drawings and prints also have the potential to show what is gained from objects’ new iterations and what they can teach us about our own lives that are lived out behind screens.