Paul Morrison

Paul Morrison takes pleasure in destabilizing the familiar. Devoid of any human presence, his landscapes are concerned with the issues of growth, life and death. These extraordinarily beautiful images examine the heart of nature’s darkest mysteries and also the phenomena of life itself.

Born in Liverpool, England in 1966, Morrison now lives and works in London. He holds a BA in Fine Art from Sheffield City Polytechnic and an MA from Goldsmiths College of Art, London. Since his first exhibition in 1996 he has shown widely throughout Europe and also in the United States, Japan, Mexico and New Zealand.

Throughout his professional career, Morrison has challenged the classical elements of color theory, composition, perspective and proportion to confront the viewer in a new way. Working only in black and white the artist explains, “I exclusively use black and white for many reasons. In fact, I think color is a very important element, so I allow it to exist only on the level of association. For example, you’re free to think that the lines defining a certain kind of plant could be yellow and not green. There is no reason to include information in a literal way because it is already codified. I limit myself to providing a framework; a context within the spectator can project information more to his interests, his previous experience.” Furthermore, by zooming individual motifs down to minute proportions, Morrison creates magnified, simplified and abstracted visions of flora and fauna that seem to resemble reverse camera negatives. He then enlarges the scenes to “larger-than-life” proportions that force us to confront the details in a dramatic and magical way. His bold black and white images depict both landscape and close-up botanical motifs and characterize his style.