{"id":28100,"date":"2015-02-24T12:56:17","date_gmt":"2015-02-24T18:56:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=28100"},"modified":"2018-11-05T14:48:36","modified_gmt":"2018-11-05T20:48:36","slug":"less-is-more-alexander-morris-at-alderwood-fine-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/less-is-more-alexander-morris-at-alderwood-fine-art\/","title":{"rendered":"Less is More: Alexander Morris at Alderwood Fine Art"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Five<\/a>

Five Tales by Alexander Morris, 30″ x 24″<\/p><\/div>\n

Inspiration comes from many places, and what inspires an artist to create may not be the same thing that inspires a viewer to appreciate, but the power of good art is that ability to act as a mediator, as a go-between, from the source of initial artistic inspiration to the work\u2019s ability to inspire something in those that view it.<\/p>\n

Since graduating from the University of Utah with a Howard Clark Scholarship and receiving \u201cBest of Show\u201d at the U\u2019s BFA exhibition, Alexander Morris continues to be inspired, staging two extremely successful shows in as many years, first at the U\u2019s Gittins Gallery (see our article here<\/a>) and then at the Salt Lake City Main Library. This week he unveiled 18 new works at Alderwood Fine Art in an exhibit that is a return to and amplification of the raven metaphor that has inspired Morris\u2019 previous work.<\/p>\n

Morris\u2019 use of the raven, or wolf-bird, as personal totem dates back to his childhood imagination and role-playing games and has served to ground his layered, mostly abstract canvases. The metaphor of \u201cConspiracy in the Sky\u201d is a recent occurrence that came about when Morris, once again in the wilds, gazed into the sky above and found a mass of ravens \u2014 what ornithologists call an unkindness, a constable or a conspiracy \u2014 saturating the atmosphere, their circular patterns of flight, their diving sweeps, and churning, swooping curls encompassing the sky. This awesome sight, and the artist\u2019s absorbing, contemplating and evocative reconnection with his own childhood experience has led to a now visceral, passionate art-making expression.<\/p>\n

But don\u2019t think for a moment that Morris has painted ravens in the sky for his new show; the act of mimicry is not the stuff of inspiration. Morris, now well-known for a reductive painting that explores the inner fabric of the qualities and possibilities of paint itself, makes use of his metaphor, and channels the essences he finds in the richness and subtlety of nuanced color, the depth he finds in the grain of texture, and the sublime he experiences as his paintings take flight like a swooping conspiracy of ravens. It is an act of spiritual, emotional, and intellectual transcendence for the artist who has revisited the reality of the truth of his life and embraces the reality and truth of the present.<\/p>\n

In works like \u201cWelkin,\u201d an archaic term for the sky, or \u201cFive Tales,\u201d a reference to the raven\u2019s role as storyteller, the viewer may not know anything of the wolf-bird and the metaphor of ravens in the sky, but their appreciation need not be diminished by this. As they find absorption in the rhythmic qualities of the textural patterns, find an emotional connection with the ethereality of weightless color \u2014which can<\/em> be connected with emotionally and be emotionally transporting and non-domineering \u2014 and discover a universe of intellectual connectivity with their own \u201cconspiracies in the sky,\u201d they may see their own youthful \u201cbirds of prey\u201d and discover the reality of the truth of their own life and embrace this reality and truth of their present. This is inspiration.<\/p>\n

\"Welking<\/a>

Welking #2 by Alexander Morris, 60″ x 36″<\/p><\/div>\n

Conspiracy in the Sky, new works by Alexander Hraefn Morris is at Alderwood Fine Art<\/a> through March 12. Showing concurrently is a selection of works by students from the University of Utah.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Inspiration comes from many places, and what inspires an artist to create may not be the same thing that inspires a viewer to appreciate, but the power of good art is that ability to act as a mediator, as a go-between, from the source of initial artistic inspiration […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":850,"featured_media":28101,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[26,19,14],"tags":[1649,1729],"class_list":["post-28100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-15-bytes","category-exhibition_reviews","category-visual_arts","tag-alderwood-fine-art","tag-alexander-hraefn-morris"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-09 12:29:56","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Morris-Five-Tales_30x24_14.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/850"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28100"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39823,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28100\/revisions\/39823"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}