Artist Margaret Morrison took over the window displays at the Kimmel Center with her series “Playtime,” on display now through Jan. 12. The featured works are paintings based thematically in unsettling children’s toys — each painting tells a story in just a single still. Still, although they hold layers of meaning, the paintings can be appreciated aesthetically as well.

Each painting is unsettlingly photorealistic. Whether it’s the translucent base of a ring-pop or the glistening of a clown doll’s painted face, these paintings hold a sense of reality rarely found in the medium. Morrison is clearly a master of the technique, as something even as complex as marbles or plastic dolls look as if they’ve truly existed and are being shown to us
through snapshots.

This is almost where the charm and interest of “Playtime” runs out. A lot of the paintings feel derivative — unsettling clown dolls, Barbie-like figures in possibly intimate positions and larger-than-life baby dolls all feel like tired tropes. There are enough examples of these themes in art already. There’s nothing wrong with using the classics to your advantage, but she depicts what has commonly been seen. However, one painting in particular was interesting: a painting of phallic and yonic lollipops, easily mistakable for a pure still life portrait. It felt out of place among the rest of the paintings.

The juxtaposition of childhood imagination and innocence and the more corrupt ideas of war, death, sex and nostalgia have become disinteresting to the point of being almost campy. The paintings themselves aren’t visually campy — quite the opposite, in fact. But the execution of ideas seem almost thought out on a surface level and not on a thematic one. The works feel like they’re more appropriate in someone’s home or a movie than they are in a standalone gallery, especially compared to Morrison’s earlier, more surreal works, which seemed to appreciate the medium more than they tried to tell a story.

It should be reiterated, however, that Morrison is an absolutely astounding painter from a technical and artistic standpoint. The translucent, shiny, sinister and somewhat viscous quality a lot of her paintings have is very appealing from a design standpoint. The level of complexity of various forms of matter — candy, glass, ceramic, plastic — that she’s able to process with paints are truly praise-worthy. These paintings are nice to look at–really nice to look at–but they are neither thought-provoking nor emotionally evocative. Morrison’s works may not be as interesting as one would anticipate from the surface-level aesthetic, but the colorful art certainly will add a playful touch of warmth the upcoming winter.

“Playtime” is on display at the Kimmel Windows at 60 Washington Square South until Jan. 12.

A version of this article appeared in the Monday, Nov. 28 print edition. Email Thomas Miritello at [email protected].