As a self-taught artist I have not had any formal training and do not have any art qualifications – not even an ‘O’ Level or GCSE. When I was in my late twenties I attended evening life drawing classes at the Morley College and City Lit in London from 1989–1991, but these provided very little in the way of tuition or instruction, but rather the chance to practice life drawing with whatever model showed up on the night.
From 1988 onwards most of my work centred on portraiture – a genre which I want to return to at some point. In 2000 I took a seventeen year hiatus from painting before picking up the brushes again in 2017. I have many of my paintings in private collections including Sade the singer, John Connolly the crime writer, Australian jazz musician Vince Jones and British Museum curator Samantha Bowden. John Connolly has been kind enough to cite the Rabbit painting as part of the inspiration for his novel, which can be found on p.418 of the 2007 edition of the paper back – see The Book of Lost Things.
The latest phase of my work has allowed me to step back and re-connect reflecting a shift in which I’ve found my style. This has come from extracting the distinctive aesthetic of local Mediterranean coastal landscapes – and a compositional language that seeks to capture the intangible scents redolent of a certain time and place.
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DAVID Morris | Art 