...there comes to mind Joseph Brodskij's desire to instil "a sense of affinity with small things - seeds plants, grain of sand or mosquitoes - small but numerous". Just like dust: by learning to appreciate it we will gain a clearer view of our place in time.
It is on this premise that Stephanie Morin seems to be following the poetry. She does it with visionary intensity, with an astounding pathos. A mourning of stars, traces of insects in aimless flight, a raffle and scuffle and fall of small brush strokes that seem to have been born directly out of the contractions, out of the raptures of the hand, wounds of the paper, crazed pulsations - true graphs of anxiety and pain
MARCO DE CAPUA
Excerpt from "Breviary" review
Juliet Art magazine, N. 80 Dec.96 Jan. 97
For a long time I have followed the work and research of Stephanie Morin who intends to adhere to the language and material appropriate to the contemporary tradition.
Aloof from vanguard movements and from the ferment of the ongoing proliferation of ideas about art, she elaborates her poetic expression within the regular framework of classical painting, upon the two dimensional surface of the canvas. Only thus does she set out and impart, through her masterful use of materials and colour those effects of light and space that painters have pursued for over a hundred years imbuing the confused human soul with poetry and emotion. I am compelled to state that her sensitivity and the lightness of her touch create surprising and efficient images even when her lyrical expression departs from the intimate and ventures into universal dimensions.
This work builds upon the heritage of such masters as Monet and, later, Fautrier, Dubuffet, Tobey, Burri and Tapies.
PIERO DORAZIO
Vela Fluitantia
The Global Village Verlag Leonhardt
Frankfurt am Main, 2000
The forms are present on the surface as floating fluids compelling the glance to move on, indicating constantly changing ways and itineraries that can be forever remodelled by perception. This is possible because the game of composition is free not only with regard to the "black subjects". Freedom also applies to all other elements in the work - either to the more graphic ones (that is, linked to the tracings of strokes and lines) or to the more painterly ones (determined by the stratification of chromatic masses). In fact, each of those linguistic elements is rigorously composed in its own area of spatial pertinence freely participating in the dialogue, in the confrontation, with the others.
What we are talking about here is the freedom of formal play - never arbitrariness. We are talking about "chance" as a certain presence within the composition - not an absolute element. It means that while there is no a priori programming of the composition plan, there is always a project, a mental map holding different parts together even before they are composed physically. Conceptually, it is a very important datum. That is, in its multiple gestation the painting is a unique singularity and not the final outcome of many different composition processes. Hence, it becomes the case of discourse with a tinge of Mallarmè, or even of a certain reference to Zen albeit never cited directly nor ideally embraced. The idea of the point of departure is represented by the composition and by the control over the forms. However, they are allowed some liberty making sure that in the final result something unforeseen, something not quite controlled - as we said, a chance - tranforms itself into a sense of wonder towards the forms, towards their rhythm and architecture. This sense stems directly from the confrontation of different elements; thus prompting us to regard the project by Morin as something based on a free rather than predetermined dialectics of pictorial discourse.
LORENZO MANGO
Confrontation
It is light this painting. It caresses the eye, inviting the viewer to dive in, to live from the inside the sensory experience of colour, the live stuff of art. In fact, the fluidity of both matter and form requires a floating glance, as mobile and airy as it should be tactile. The surface texture of the painting, mobile and yet persistent, begs to be touched, to be animated by the eye. Only thus it reveals itself for what it really is, a thin membrane that opens beyond vision, onto the silent hum of the deepest watery abyss and of the most distant sky.
LORENZO MANGO
Vela Fluitantia
The Global Village Verlag Leonhardt
Frankfurt am Main, 2000
Apart from refined maturity in the use of materials and technique, the artist shows a considerable sensitivity - the entire work is permeated by a philological awareness, but in the final analysis this almost didactic tendency of titles turns out to be the most apt explanation of the paintings themselves.
The interiorization of the ongoing show of life, perception and vision, rational and irrational fused together, all provide a focus upon a deeper dimension - different from and yet coexistent with the matter. It is doubtless a taxing and consuming work to embark on a search not only of the essence of one's own mode of perception but of the very essence of the dimension of reality itself - in the painting that has no room for a single gratuitous brushstroke or for academic scholasticism. It evokes the unicum vitale in whose filaments we are all entangled, of which we are part and yet with which, perhaps, we have lost all contact. Without a doubt, one must personally experience the singular and yet universal effect produced by these works.
ROSSELLA PAGLIA,
Messaggero 1995
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