Born in central Pennsylvania, Rebecca Morgan works in painting, drawing, and ceramics that subvert stereotypes of Appalachia. Imbued with folk tradition and a sly sense of humor, her work peels apart the simultaneous reverence and disgust for rural people. Stylistically, Morgan embraces the hyper-detailed naturalism of Dutch masters, as well as absurd, repulsive caricature suggestive of underground cartoonists like R. Crumb. Although they often contain modern clues, her characters and scenes evoke a romanticized, nostalgic America, nonexistent but wistfully recalled, much like Norman Rockwell’s illustrations. Morgan’s works question what such images were selling in their conception, and she gives her archetypal maids, hillbillies, and dandies the space to explore contemporary issues of women
reclaiming their subjectivity, a pop-cultural false sense of romance, and ideas about masculinity, power, escapism, and hedonistic backwoods pleasure.