L. SCOOTER MORRIS
Lori Morris was immersed in creativity from a young age as she would shadow her grandmother, a self-taught embroidery expert. Eventually, when she got her hands on the sewing machine, her grandmother and mother worked out a way to cultivate this creativity and talent. From the sewing machine to jewelry making, sculpting and painting, Morris found ways to create in multiple mediums. Her talent is deeply tied to her self-expression and drive to continue to grow through her craft. In her thirty year-long career, her work has been inspired by the integration of color, light, and texture on canvas.
L. Scooter Morris, For Love or Money, 2018
“I gather the experience of being in a moment, at a place, at a time. I use that information to create the image. It is the sense of how the light and the color filters through the image and the atmosphere you might be surrounded by at that moment in time.”
Morris grew up in Pittsburgh and attended Tyler School of Art, Temple University in Philadelphia, and Rome, Italy. She left school for a year to move to Los Angeles only to later resume her studies at the University of Southern California. Morris now resides in New Mexico and continues to be greatly influenced by the atmosphere and environment that surround her. The artist’s paintings have appeared in galleries both in the United States and abroad, including Times Square, the Louvre, and Wiford Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Her recent work is easily recognized, as she uses a loaded and unmistakable symbol: the United States flag. As with her previous work, At first you see the whole picture, but upon closer inspection, a world of detail is revealed. Within this political work, at first glance you see an image, perhaps an iconic symbol that seems familiar, but when you look closer the detail is revealed. Detail that gives meaning to those symbols and to the work as a whole. Sometimes these images are a reflection of current events. Sometimes they are a reflection of consciousness, concern, or consideration.
“The ultimate moment of sensory experience also exists a glimmer of hope, the promise of something bigger than we are. My goal is to make artwork that is so beautiful it cuts to the heart of what is true, to create art that is of this moment, but exists as something that is timeless”