Merijean Morrissey

Merijean Morrissey was born in Chicago and completed her BFA at the University of Illinois, also spending a year in Paris at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere, followed by a term at the Art Institute of Chicago. With a Max Beckmann graduate scholarship in hand; she spent a year in New York at the Brooklyn Museum before returning to the University of Illinois in the MFA program in painting and printmaking.

Morrissey immigrated to Canada in 1971 to teach at the University of Ottawa. In 1984 she moved to Brock University in Niagara. She retired in 2014 as Professor Emerita. She has been a member of Graphic Studio Dublin since 2009.

My practice focuses on the use of poetic devices where visual metaphors are primarily used to enhance meaning. I am interested in memory, history, migration, and the cosmos.

Morrissey is the recipient of numerous grants from the Canada Council, the Ontario Arts Council, the Humanities Research Institute, as well as from private institutions. She has been on the inaugural SSHRC Research/Creation jury, Canada Council, and the Ontario Arts Council juries. Her work is represented in over 30 public collections, including the Irish Office of Public Works, and been exhibited in Dublin, (most notably in NATION: Portraits from the State Collection, 1916-2016) Berlin, Tokyo, Kobe, Penang, Taipei, Seoul, Barcelona, Warsaw, New York, Chicago, Boston, UK, France, Estonia, and Yugoslavia.