MORGAN GRIGSBY

 My work focuses on the history of a changing landscape. I grew up on the outskirts of a 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 reflect on these trails of history to uphold imprints of my heritage.

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 Morgan Grigsby (b. 2001) is an oil painter who works in Texas. His art functions as a pursuit of remembering personal and intergenerational experiences in the southern environment. These private experiences on the southern Gulf Coast serve as both an extension of his heritage and identity. He focuses on sensory awareness to embrace and critique the land his family raised him on while examining his own feelings of isolation, hope, and privacy. He deconstructs and distorts images and memories with paint to reexplore the physical and psychological sensation of having the mind, body, and vision adjust to the region and the climate.  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), and Assemblage, at The University of Houston Clear Lake Art gallery in Houston, Texas (2023).

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