MLitt Fine Art Practice School of Fine Art
Morven G Stewart
Process, Time and Light
My practice explores the dynamics of transformation, risk, and reciprocity through explosive image-making and performative process. Working with light-sensitive materials and controlled detonation, I capture the tension between order and chaos, visibility and trace. I treat photography not as a tool of representation, but as a receptive surface—an active participant in a ritual of mark-making. Sound, moving image, and collaboration expand the scope of this enquiry, translating ephemeral acts into immersive, sensory encounters. As both maker and material, I position myself within the work, using feminist authorship as a framework for presence, resilience, and embodied practice. The art school has served as both a crucible and a container—a reciprocal space in which risk becomes method and residue becomes meaning. My aim is not to record the event, but to hold its energy, compelling the viewer to see, to feel, and to linger in the afterimage.
Explosion Capture Series
This series demonstrates my determination to replicate the unreplicable—my aim was to capture the fleeting intensity of explosion in a way that feels complete. When working with explosives, I produce many images, but not all achieve the depth I seek. Some fall flat—lacking vitality, perhaps underexposed, failing to hold my engagement. The development stage allows little time; I use cold chemistry to gain precious seconds, yet the temptation to panic and remove the print too early is strong. These images, however, have more. The varying depths of grey and black in the negative areas translate into a visual intensity that carries the explosion’s residual energy. It allows us to almost hear the sound, to feel its reverberation. This is what I aim for: to transfer the sensory force of the event into a visual form that resonates beyond the moment of detonation.
Flash Powder Burn Series
Images, made by igniting flash powder directly onto strong artist’s canvas. The surface bears the memory of that instant—scorched marks where light, heat, and force converged.
The works are as much the residue of an event as they are images in themselves. Each burn holds the trace of a moment too fast for the eye, an impression left by an explosion that exists now only in its mark. The scale invites close looking, drawing the viewer into the quiet aftermath of an intense, fleeting action. In their simplicity, they become distilled expressions of energy made visible.
Burn Rate Series, St Peter’s, 2.41minutes
I find the pace of the piece to be relaxing and somewhat hypnotic, There’s a clear physiological link between music and heart rate so I tried to lean into this and create a tempo of burn rate that mimicked our resting heart rate in the hope it would subconsciously engage with us. This synchronization happens through brain signals that respond to rhythms, affecting organs like the heart. By designing the installation so the live element is slowly moving away from you I am trying to evoke a range of emotions, from a sense of melancholy or nostalgia to a feeling of peace or detachment. With this piece I am trying to connect with the audience on a physiological level, to invoke feelings.
Roslin Gunpowder Mill: Performance Series
The exhibition presents an archive of documentation from a series of performances that took place at Roslin Gunpowder Mill and St Peters Seminary. A collaboration between Morven G Stewart and Magnus Westwell, the works merge their respective practices – Stewart’s use of explosives and photography with Westwell’s work in performance and sound – meeting at their shared understandings of risk, light, and absence. They capture fleeting moments where heat and motion collide to create visceral encounters in which body and material reveal a flickering vulnerability and the tension between control and chaos. These pieces endure as fragments of charged moments in time, holding something of their essence before it slips away.
