Peggy Roalf: Marco, thanks for taking the time to talk. I just re-read your review of Ana-Marie Morar’s Hide & Seek at Arts for Peace Gallery and was struck by how you managed to be both critical and deeply personal. I wanted to start with something simple: what drew you into Ana Maria Morar’s work initially?
Marco Palli: Honestly, I didn’t expect to be so affected. I walked into the show thinking I’d be spending twenty quiet minutes looking at plaster castings of baby clothes and then moving on. Instead, I stayed over an hour. I found myself... pulled in, magnetized. And I’m not a parent, which is part of why I found the work so affecting. Morar’s sculptures touched on something I hadn’t been actively looking for—something about memory, sacrifice, and this often invisible labor of care that felt strangely familiar. I realized I was seeing my own mother through the pieces.

PR: That’s a powerful entry point—and not one I hear often from male critics, especially around work that centers motherhood. What about the materials—plaster and textile—stood out to you?
MP: It’s that contradiction between the softness of fabric and the finality of plaster. The pieces are tender, yes, but also tough—like the maternal experience itself. There’s a quiet radicalism in her use of materials. She elevates the most ordinary objects—children’s clothes, remnants of routine—and turns them into these haunting, enduring forms. It reminded me of Rachel Whiteread, who casts the negative space of objects and places. But while Whiteread often captures absence or vacancy, Morar’s work holds presence—it retains intimacy, like the warmth of a hand you can’t forget.

PR: That’s such a beautiful distinction. I couldn’t help but think about Louise Bourgeois, especially her later textile works. Did that reference come up for you?

MP: Absolutely. Bourgeois is a clear antecedent—not just in material, but in how she treats the body and memory. There’s that same confrontation with the domestic as both a source of comfort and a site of rupture. But where Bourgeois often works through trauma and psychological fragmentation, Morar seems to be wrestling with transformation—what it means to outgrow, to let go, and to preserve the moment just before that happens.

PR: You describe her work as “honest.” What does that word mean to you in this context?
MP: Honesty, in this case, is about restraint. There’s no aesthetic pandering, no hyper-conceptual obfuscation. The work doesn’t ask to be decoded—it asks to be felt. She trusts the material, the gesture, and the viewer. That’s brave. It’s also rare.

PR: One of the works, Holly Mess, seems to carry a bit of humor—at least in the title. Did you feel that balance between seriousness and play?
MP: Yes—and it’s crucial. That title made me laugh, and then it made me pause. Humor is part of the texture of motherhood, isn’t it? The exhaustion, the absurdity, the rituals of entropy that somehow keep things going. The work doesn’t joke at motherhood—it jokes with it, from within it. And again, for someone like me who’s not a parent, that humor becomes a point of entry rather than alienation.

PR: It’s fascinating how you connected with the work through your relationship to your own mother. Do you feel that viewers without direct ties to motherhood still have something to gain?
MP: Absolutely. I think what’s so special about Hide & Seek is that it doesn’t require you to share the artist’s experience to engage with her questions. The work speaks to care in its broadest sense—what we inherit, what we hold, what we forget to thank others for. That’s universal. And in a culture that often overlooks or undervalues care, especially unpaid care, Morar’s work insists that we stop and look. Really look.

PR: Would you say the show changed the way you see sculpture—or even motherhood?
MP: Both, actually. As someone who often gravitates toward conceptual, process-heavy work, I sometimes forget how potent a sculpture can be when it’s grounded in personal truth. Morar doesn’t need spectacle. Her pieces are quiet, and that quietness holds weight. As for motherhood—well, I left the gallery with a stronger sense of gratitude, and maybe even guilt. It made me think of all the invisible work mothers do that never gets cast in plaster. Maybe it should be.

PR: That’s a poignant note to end on. Marco, thank you again for your insight—and for helping bring more attention to an artist whose work truly deserves it.
MP: My pleasure, Peggy. Thanks for the thoughtful questions. More @marco.palli Images courtesy of the artist More @ammorar

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