JOHN MORRIS
Oil on Board
25″ x 18″
“Friend out for a Walk”
Oil On Board
51 x 51cm (20″x20″)
ABOUT
John was born in Dublin in 1958. He has been painting since the late 1990’s. Recently, he moved to Abbeyfeale, County Limerick to paint full-time. He is married and has three children. Mostly self taught, John took painting lessons from Brian Quinn after meeting him painting Plein air in 1997.
John says:
“We live in an era of aesthetic experiment in which ‘mere’ representation of the world is considered at best commonplace. Most art colleges consider drawing part of a tradition that has run its course. I personally don’t agree with this, every kind of art has its place. The work that I aspire to is work which has a degree of skill, I have a love of the Irish Landscape, the effects of light and weather, atmosphere, distance. The paintings that result are fresh, immediate and compelling.
I am prone to stop to make quick oil or pencil sketches when something has caught my eye! Mornings and evenings, come rain, hail or shine I will stop and do this, gradually putting together a kind of visual record that I would use in more finished work. Eventually, encouraged by professional artists whose opinions I valued, and by sales of my own work in open exhibitions such as The Rotunda Hospital, I took the plunge, and started to exhibit in galleries. I work out of a studio adjacent to my house in Kilteel, which is close to the landscape, city and beach that I paint.
Today some critics tell us that to be great, art should shock, disturb and challenge our preconceptions – well, some should, but not all of it; art can be great that also celebrates the world around us. Painters who enjoy the landscape, the weather, light and shade; who love the beauty of flowers in a pot; the human form; the everydayness of kitchen things, are capable of being every bit as ‘serious’ as those whose vision is of a bleaker kind. What my art can do is make our faded eyes see that ordinary bit of the Irish countryside beach, etc in a different way.”