Royal Academician Mali Morris has selected 23 of her works on paper for this exhibition. They are presented in three groups, from different periods of her career.

There are three plein air paintings in watercolour, made in Cyprus and Canada, from the late 1980s. These were never intended as studies for her abstract paintings, but their rhythmic drawing and luminosity is echoed in some of her larger paintings on canvas from that time.

Eight vertical works opposite the entrance to the gallery are from the series Edge of a Portrait, from the 1990s, in which Morris explored her fascination with the pictorial structures of profile portraits from the Italian Renaissance.

Lastly, there is a group of 12 works in acrylic from around 2000, when Morris embarked on a search for different ways of structuring colour – layering and excavating, rather than composing laterally. It was the beginning of the most radical and original phase of her work, which continues her preoccupation with the expressive possibilities of abstract painting, drawing on many sources but constantly exploring how colour can structure light and space.

The display will be accompanied by a gallery guide written by the author and poet, Martha Kapos.