Land of Mine
Expressions of Self with John Morris
For many artists, creative practice whether written, painted, sculpted or otherwise, is about exploring and explaining the human condition – the things that make us human including, birth, death, emotions and existence. It can ask big and broad or sweeping questions, about life, the universe, and our place in it. It can also explore more inward-looking questions, about the self, the abstract and the unknown.
Newcastle artist John Morris (1954-) has consistently explored varius aspects of the human conditions in his large body of work, made throughout his lifetime. Thematically linked through their subject matter and bold stylistic choices, Morris’ landscape works reflect the artist’s ability to infer a tantalising notion of ‘just over the horizon’, a moody, intense exploration of the ‘almost’.
A reductive abstractionist, Morris’ piece Unseasonal Conditions invokes feelings of moodiness and warmth. It echoes both sunrise and sunset, walking the line between the unreal and the things that we know to be true – the sun both rises and sets, but here, which one is it? The viewer is asked to examine their own truth, in the context of a larger experience.
Unseasoned Conditions was the winner of the Maitland Art Prize in 1992.
