Artist Morgan Sims has nice "drip"
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You're doomed! A drip painting of MF Doom. Image: Courtesy of Morgan Sims
Artist Morgan Sims perfects his process to perfect the outcome.
Why it matters: Philly has a kaleidoscopic art scene that rivals meccas like New York, allowing little-known artists to flourish and find fame in creative, strange ways.
Zoom in: When he talks about testing the viscosity of hand-mixed acrylic paints, it's clear how dedicated Sims is to painting. His mind-melting attention to detail pays off in pieces like:
- Self-styled drip paintings of icons like Dolly Parton and MF Doom.
- Commissioned pet portraits that became popular during the pandemic.
- And a classic six-shot revolver that looks like "Yosemite Sam's gun" that shoots a flag out, Sims says.
How it works: To prepare for marathon paint sessions that can last 15 hours, Sims mixes up to 150 paints.
- He uses a block stamp to begin applying layers of paint at the bottom of the canvas and works upward.
- Gravity does the rest of the work, pulling paint down the canvas to form layered drips of "moody" and "grotesque" distorted images, Sim tells Axios.
- Sims creates time-lapse videos of the paintings, which take two weeks to dry fully, then analyzes them like a pro athlete evaluating what he could've done better.
What's happened: Sims has sold the most paintings of his career since relocating to Philly from Chicago about a year ago.
- His productivity is also through the roof now that he lives and creates out of a 2,500-square-foot studio at the Globe Dye Works building instead of commuting to a separate working space as he did in the Windy City.
- He works in the same building as artist, friend and fellow University of Wisconsin alum Stacey Lee Webber.
What he's saying: "I just knew what 10 years in Chicago was," Sims says of his move. "It was easy to think I would know what the next 10 years would look like without a shakeup."
Flashback: Initially a printmaker with a flair for music, Sims "nerds out" on technical aspects of painting that others overlook with an output that could be considered a mashup of Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol and Jay-Z.
- Much like the rapper in the studio, he does the drip paintings in one take. His record is 16.5 hours for the Doom portrait.
The bottom line: That doesn't consider the months of prep, either.
- "Sometimes I wish it wasn't as laborious as it is," he says.
