Aela Boyum Morgan was born in 1970 in Israel to young parents in what was then a “mixed marriage.” She immigrated to New York at the age of eight and graduated from the United Nations International School in 1988 and the NYU Stern School of Business in 1992. She now lives and works in New York and Colorado.
Initially drawn to photography while raising her three boys in order to capture their childhood and extensive travel, Morgan was captivated by landscape photography and eventually the microcosm of textures found in nature. With each photographic print, she found herself gravitating towards working into the photograph with ink, charcoal and eventually paint. These interventions eventually led her to study painting. Her work now includes traditional mediums such as graphite, pastel, and oil and acrylic paints on canvas and paper. In addition, she remains committed to innovative explorations of collage and mixed media with the experimental, fearless approach to materials characteristic of children’s play.
Over the course of a decade, what began as a mother’s documentation of her children developed into a serious artistic practice dedicated to confronting the structures of the human condition that both connect and separate us. Morgan’s various series document psychological and emotional complexities of women’s lives as revealed though both figurative and abstract imagery. She explores the multiple layers of female identity, mining her own life to examine universal experiences of sexuality, spirituality, and aging while documenting women’s numerous roles as mothers, daughters, wives, citizens, travelers, activists, consumers, and creators. Each painting is a raw, hyper-sensitive observation of the intricacies of our relationships with the world and each other. Her work is an empathetic documentation of the fragility of human experience and our struggle to find and maintain a positive equilibrium while on this brief journey.
Morgan’s bravado brushwork and subtle color sense impart all of her paintings, abstract and figurative, with emotional drama, and draw the viewer into a dialogue with the work. Her forceful and direct imagery weaves stories that exude depths of experience, wisdom, compassion, and tremendous honesty. Morgan’s work invites the viewer to linger, contemplate, and celebrate the gift of art.