sunday tribune may '08
Son
of tv personality, Thelma Mansfield, he is a largely self taught
painter whose travels have helped in honing a style that, while
difficult to pin down, is nevertheless individual and immediately
recognisable.
"I started in art college but left almost immediately - my year in
college put me off art completely" says morris. "But I took some time
out and came back more mature, and more carefree, with a clearer
perspective on what I wanted to do."
Morris' travels took him from France to Catalonia, and while Dublin is
his main subject matter, his works seem to be suffused with both French
sensibility and Mediterranean light.
"When I relaxed, I became much better as an artist," he says.
"My style is not a deliberate choice. What I had been painting
previously morphed into what you see today, and I let the style come about by
itself. I have always done my own thing and try not to be influenced, and it is
possible that those who have influenced me are not my favourite
artists. For example, I love Bacon, but my works look nothing like
Bacon. In fact, the biggest influence that I have seems to have come from Barcelona's
graffiti artists."
If there is a touch of the Guerilla to Morris' paintings, it only adds
to the sense of vibrancy that he manages to bring to the traditionally
grey Dublin City. His painting is as reminiscent of mosaic as it is of
the masters of the late 19th and early 20th Century, including the
impressionists and post-impressionists; but it is nonetheless
recognisably Dublin.