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ORCHID.Spring


Matthew Morrocco




Galerie B.B. 

840 Santa Fe Drive

Denver, CO

Artist Talk: June 8, 10:00am

April 19 - June 15, 2019
Extended Through June 29

ORCHID.Spring: Projects

Gallerie B.B. and The Olympia Project are pleased to present ORCHID.Spring, a new body of work by artist Matthew Morrocco.

This work explores the interrelationship between the human and natural worlds. In each photograph, a purple figure--the artist himself dressed in a full-color bodysuit--poses within an enormous cluster of blooming Sakura trees. Morrocco tries to merge his body with the landscape, bending his arms to mimic the drape of a tree branch or, in one image, only half-emerging from a burst of sakura blossoms. Looking at these photographs, the viewer finds herself haunted by a familiar uneasiness. The centrality of Morrocco to every composition, the way his hiding only draws the viewer’s attention, captures how human beings have remade the earth in their own anthropocentric image. We live in a time in which we increasingly realize how the natural world--even its most remote corners, whether the deep sea or the rainforest--has been forever altered by human actions. Even natural spaces that appear untouched have often sustained heavy contact with the human--supposedly authentic experiences with “nature” have, more often than not, been extensively curated and anthropocentrized before the arrival of the newest human individual. Embodying this reality, Morrocco’s anonymous figure--mostly stripped of, age, race, and almost all of the categories central to human identity--filters the eye away from the breath-taking Sakura trees. At first, locating and studying the figure at the center of the images elicits pleasure--on second and third viewings, he begins to feel inescapable.

Spring shows the Sakura trees at a point in their lifecycle when they are most vulnerable and yet the most triumphant--they burst forth with unrepentant candor. While it may seem as though these trees are hardy, their presence is actually very delicate. The trees only bloom for a few weeks before the petals fall from the trees and decay on the ground. But in that time, bees work to pollinate the blossoms, which in turn creates more trees, more flowers, and more visual delight. As opposed to the sustainable cycle of the Sakura trees, human industry and cultivation have already pushed global warming beyond the threshold of no return, the US has pulled out of the Paris Agreement, and yet still, somehow, the environmental crisis is not the center of our attention. In making images that model the problematic centrality of the human in even the most serene natural spaces, this project seeks to bring the problematic anthropocentrism to the fore--the desire to see the Sakura trees without the omnipresent purple figure catalyzes our better impulses toward a more intimate coexistence.


This series forms one part of a larger body of work, ORCHID.Seasons, that will explore this concept across different landscapes and seasons.

ORCHID.Spring: Text

In the News

Photographer Matthew Morrocco explores our delicate relationship with nature in the era of climate change

SLEEK Magazine

Interview by: Benoit Louseau
April 23, 2019

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ORCHID.Spring: News
ORCHID.Spring: Gallery

About the Artist

Matthew Morrocco is an artist working in photography and installation. He holds a BA from NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study and an MFA from Columbia University. His work has received grant support from the New York Foundation of the Arts, a blade of grass, NYU, and Columbia University. Recent exhibitions include Complicit at NYU’s Gallatin Gallery, NY, and ORCHID.rbg at Pioneer Works, NY. His book, Complicit, was published in September, 2018 with Matte Editions.

ORCHID.Spring: Text
Paintings In Gallery

Press Release

Download the PDF

Download the press release for easy access to the exhibition information, including artist and curator bios, and gallery information.

For additional information regarding the exhibition, or to arrange opportunities to speak with or meet the artist and/or curator, please contact me at art@sophieolympia.com.


The exhibition will feature events to coincide with the following dates:

Third Friday: April 19, May 17, June 14

Art Of Brunch: April 28, May 26

First Friday: May 3, June 7

Artist Talk: June 8, 10:00am

Additional exhibition text for ORCHID.Spring by Matthew Morrocco at Gallerie B.B.

Download the PDF

Download additional exhibition text for ORCHID.Spring.

For additional information regarding the exhibition, or to arrange opportunities to speak with or meet the artist and/or curator, please contact me at art@sophieolympia.com.

ORCHID.Spring: Files
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