D’Amelio Terras, New York
January 5 – February 9, 2008
D’Amelio Terras is pleased to present never before exhibited paintings by John Morris. He has been known primarily for creating delicate and compositionally complex works on paper that feature built up surfaces and repetitive forms that reflect his fascination with systems and patterns. Unlike his works on paper, these paintings on board allow the mediums used by him in the past, such as acrylic, ink, graphite, and wax, to take on a more fluid and transparent quality.
John Morris’s delicate paintings on board are small and translucent universes made up of grids, dots and patterns where layers of repetitive motifs tie together the individual works. They reference patterns from nature, music notations, and economic systems. Although the paintings are quite labor intensive, they appear to be produced effortlessly and naturally.
“Art like Morris’s suggests a direct, indexical, and therefore euphoric transcription of thought, in which every sign is motivated by some mystical urgency known only to the author, and no detour through conventional grammar dulls the high of radical self-expression.”
— Frances Richard, ArtForum, December, 2002
John Morris has had numerous solo and group exhibitions including at Works On Paper, Los Angeles, CA; Anthony Meier Fine Arts, San Francisco, CA; the Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC; and National Academy Museum, New York, NY. His work is in the permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; The Queens Museum of Art, Queens, NY; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX.
