MORGAN GRIGSBY

 My work focuses on the history of a changing landscape. I grew up on the outskirts of a small town near Houston called Sugar Land. It was established as a company town in the nineteenth century to produce sugarcane within a humid subtropical environment. Unlike other regions of Texas, this area is known for its sweltering summer days, often obscured by haze and sea fog. In the past, the climate was notoriously described as a “hell hole on the Brazos [River]” because of the unpleasant living conditions. After learning that Sugar Land’s success was through the exploitation of Black prison labor through convict leasing during the Reconstruction era, it became imperative for me to reclaim these trails of history to uphold imprints of my heritage. My work exemplifies the importance of home and how the transformation of land that was once deemed untamable helped to redefine my culture as a Black Texan who still lives in the South.

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 Morgan Grigsby (b. 2001) is an oil painter who works in central Texas as an MFA graduate student at the University of Texas in Austin. His art is a pursuit of remembering past experiences on the Gulf coastal plains. He deconstructs and distorts images and memories with paint to reexplore the physical and psychological sensation of having his mind, body, and vision adjust to the region and the climate. His personal and family history of past nomadic experiences on land in the south serves as both an extension of his heritage and his own identity. He combines his fleeting memories of home in the south with the temporality of light to embrace and critique the land his family raised him on while examining the feelings of isolation, hope, and privacy. Grigsby has had solo exhibitions at The Calaboose African American History Museum in San Marcos, Texas (2023) and Spellerberg Projects art gallery in Lockhart, Texas. His numerous group exhibitions include Emerging from Where? At the David Shelton Gallery in Houston Texas (2025), The Bert Long Jr. Spring exhibition at the Houston Museum of African American Culture in Houston, TX (2024), The Big Show, at Lawndale Art Center in Houston, Texas (2023), Assemblage, at The University of Houston Clear Lake Art gallery in Houston, Texas (2023), and the student juried exhibition at Texas State Galleries in San Marcos, Texas (2021- 2023). Grigsby was also honored with the Best in Show award in the student-juried exhibition (2023).

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