Pol Morton’s solo exhibition shifts views on illness

The first time Pol Morton was bedbound by illness, they felt entirely removed from the world. By the second time it happened, they made sure to keep a sketchbook within reach. Morton is now in the habit of jotting down words and drawings that describe their pain whenever it consumes them.  

“We don’t download what pain feels like. That’s not a thing we can recall,” says the artist. By recording their perceptions of pain, Morton can, in a way, disassociate from it. “It doesn’t feel like it’s just pain for pain’s sake. It’s like it’s going somewhere.”

Documenting pain can mean drawing outlines of their arms and legs on the Notes app of their phone and retracing them with the color of each day’s sensation. That process informed the radiating silhouettes in “EXAM SHORTS_BLUE LARGE (2024),” an assemblage painting with the approximate dimensions of a queen-size bed (the size of Morton’s world at the time). It can also mean feverishly scrawling the word “PAINTOWN.” “There’s not, like, a painless day. But ‘paintown’ in full caps as the entire page, that’s a particular kind of day.”

Pol Morton was born with heart and blood conditions and developed arthritis in high school; they have suffered two serious concussions and undergone major surgeries and radiation treatment. None of this is apparent on the body of the 37-year-old artist, who is currently completing the Monira Residency at Mana Contemporary, Jersey City.  

“I think a lot about invisible disability and queer invisibility,” they explain. Without Morton’s accessibility devices, others do not see their chronic illness. Nor do others automatically see that Morton is trans and non-binary. “They don’t necessarily know that I have a body that has a mind of its own.” 

The walls of Morton’s studio were uncharacteristically empty when I visited in late September, with many of their latest works displayed in the artist’s solo show “Get Well” at Olympia, a Lower East Side gallery intent on “dismantling the cis-male-centric art canon.” So, instead, we studied the spread of materials that compose Morton’s body on canvas. Sculptures of colossal feet and colorful beads encrusted in wrinkly layers of oil paint dubbed “nimples.” Hand-sewn sequin patches and hospital scraps, like KN95 masks. All found objects that make it into Morton’s paintings are lathered in protective goos, like PVA glue or resin. “Moths are real,” says the artist, though they admit to being “unreasonably meticulous” about preservation. “I protect the art in a way that I can’t protect myself.”

When Morton impresses their body on canvas (sometimes literally, à la Keltie Ferris or David Hammons), they surface the beauty in both its queer and corporal experiences. The joyful colors in Morton’s work originate in injury: the greens and purples of bruises, the electric yellow of pus. “Pus is beautiful!” Morton declares, adding, “just, color-wise.” These then intersect with the pinks, blues, and whites of trans pride—colors Morton doesn’t consider binding (“I use orange and blue, red and blue, pink and blue all interchangeably”). Rainbows for queer visibility signpost maps of keepsakes and bodily textures. The hot pink honeycomb pattern in “Get Well” (2024) follows the imprint of Morton’s blood into band-aids. 

The message within “Get Well,” spoken by heart-shaped cutouts of a ‘get well’ balloon, asks us to rethink expectations around health and recovery. “Chronic illness or disability, injury, these are all, kind of, places I live on a regular basis,” says Morton. “So, when someone says, ‘Oh, you’re all better’, that doesn’t really mean anything to me. There is no factory setting for the body.” Likewise, works like “CANE/CAN” (2024) challenge the conception of accessibility devices, canes or wheelchairs, as signs of unwellness. “Being in a wheelchair was magical,” Morton recalls, “before that, I was stuck.”

In a way, Morton has had no choice but to become an expert interpreter of their inner body, tasked with summoning words that describe to doctors the nuances of their pain. Morton’s paintings thus often adopt the artist’s point of view, observing themselves and the world from the inside out; they look down at the tops of their feet, their face absent or just a reflection. The work “IAMTRANS” (2024), built around a statement initially intended to be painted over, breaks that pattern. By turning towards their body’s exterior, Morton claims their identity both inside and out, and promises a medical intervention that affirms, not just makes ‘well.’ Whatever ‘well’ means. 

Featured image: Pol Morton, Get Well, 2024. Oil, “Get Well,” balloon, hand-sewn sequin patches, kn95 mask, fibers, resin, notions on canvas. 60 × 54 × 2 in (152.4 × 137.2 × 5.1 cm).