Born in Oakland, California in 1982, Briony moved to Whidbey
Island, Washington in 1986 with her parents, Buffy Cribbs
and Bruce Morrow. While Briony was in middle school, her grandmother,
Ann Cribbs, purchased a 30" x 60" Tackach press
for the family and set up a Print Studio on her property,
which would later be named the Cat Skinner Press. One day
Briony's father asked her to help him with an edition of block
prints and her love affair with printing had begun.
In 2000 Briony went to Southern Vermont to study at Bennington
College. While there she studied printmaking under Catherine
Mosley and Perry Tymeson. In 2002 Briony moved back to the
west coast to attend the Emily Carr institute of Art and Design
in Vancouver, British Columbia. The school not only provided
a base closer to home but also provided a more intense art
education. While at Emily Carr, Briony studied printmaking,
specifically etching, the Book Arts and Digital art.
After graduating in May 2005, Briony moved back to Whidbey Island and set up her own graphic arts business, Cribbs-Morrow Artworks, and continued working on her etchings at the Cat Skinner Press.
In January of 2008, Briony pulled up stakes and moved to Brattleboro, VT to start Twin Vixen Press with a fellow printmaker, Helen O’Donnell. The press provides intaglio-based print classes, press rental and studio space for print artists. Currently, Briony is working on illustration projects for books and continues work on her series of Chimera.
There is something about monstrous form that appeals to the
human imagination. There are numerous periods in history where
these unnatural forms have surfaced. In the 17th century Cabinets
of Curiosities emerged in the name of science. In the 1900's
photographs taken for medical purposes morphed into the role
of entertainment when presented to a curious audience. More
currently, the grotesque form has emerged as scientists explore
Genetically Modified Organisms and the questionable clone.
By combining human curiosity and the potential fear of the
unknown through the medium of printmaking and rational language
of science, I am attempting to create a place where immutable
truths can become mutable. Such a collection is unavoidably
incomplete. My ambiguous forms, just as my imagination, are
forever growing, morphing and mutating. One day a chimera
may take the form of lizard morphing into a bird, another
day it may take the form of a genetically mutated botanical
specimen. Whether my composite forms speak of past attempts
in art and science to categorize or whether they speak of
future hybrids, my work attempts to challenge currently held
assumptions that there can be a single truth.
Currently my work uses the mediums of print and the book
arts (and occasionally ceramics) to create a graphic connection
between the recognizable "real" world and my invisible,
"fantasy" world. Intimate in scale, my prints use
the familiar visual language of detail as well as a reference
to scientific illustration to convey a sense of truth. By
doing this, my intention is to not only intensify the enigmatic
character and unnatural placement of these objects in the
"real" world but to intensify their appeal to the
point of absurdity. My books further exaggerate this experience
by incorporating text, the unavoidable final word in the realm
of truth.
By providing my viewers with familiar references to science
and history through images and text, I provide a place of
comfort and security within my work. The handcrafted nature
and use of traditional methods in my work allows the viewer
to develop a strong and intimate relationship, while concurrently
stressing its connection to a contemporary context within
art and science. By making these creations, I seek to provide
my viewer with alternative "truths," a platform
from which to critically analyze and challenge how we, as
a Western culture, normally perceive, process and consume
information.
Briony Morrow-Cribbs' Resume |
