“Beyond the Sky” by Gail Morris will be on dispaly March 26 to April 7, 2009
with an artist reception 6:00-9:00 PM, Thursday, March 26 at Bonner David Galleries in Scottsdale, Arizona. The elegant art of Gail Morris is featured for her annual showing at Bonner David Galleries. Her rich, yet minimal use of paint encompasses the grace and insight of contemporary landscapes. Her focus in creating these paintings is to reduce each experience to its visual and emotional essence.
To achieve this, Morris finds her work to be informed by the great color field abstractionists as much as it is by the traditions of landscape. By merging these influences with her own visceral response to these places, she endeavors to create a new and transcendent mixture, one that draws the viewer into the work and transmits a sense of place. This is a Bonner David event that is not to be missed!
“The landscape paintings of Gail Morris are spare and elegant. Economical divisions set off the near from the far spaces. Color relations are abstract and resonant. These pictures are evidence of a sensuous and celebratory response to nature, and to life in general.” - Wolf Kahn
So begins the book Horizon Lines: The Paintings of Gail Morris as one of her inspirations and one of her instructors was privileged to describe her paintings in the forward of her latest book. Beginning with a career in photojournalism, Gail Morris found her passion moving more and more toward palette, canvas, and brush as she studied with artists in Haiti and worked along such noted artists as Michael Workman, Matt Smith and T.A. Lawson.
Perhaps it’s because she feels a unique connection with the land that her landscapes so vividly capture the richness of a New Mexico valley or the hillsides of California. Though she presently lives in California, she does not confine her work to a single region. Her love of travel has enriched her perspective as she lends an element of magic to each of her creations. With each panorama, the eye of the viewer is drawn to the deep colors of the expanses she paints.
Morris comments, “I strive to capture the soothing exuberance of the Western landscape. My focus in creating these paintings is to reduce each experience to its visual and emotional essence. To achieve this, I find my work is informed by the great color field abstractionists as much as it is by the traditions of landscape. By merging these influences with my own visceral response to these places, I endeavor to create a new and transcendent synthesis, one that draws the viewer into the work and transmits a sense of place.”
For these reasons her work has been classified as both contemporary, yet traditional. The image of the landscape can be reduced to clean abstract lines, brimming with color. She has participated in over fifty juried shows garnering over twenty prizes. Her work is in a number of noted private and corporate collections throughout California as well as throughout the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Australia, Japan and Europe.
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