The Creative Day...
My days are very different depending on whether
I am working in the studio or on location. I travel all over
the West Highlands and islands in search of new subject matter,
and once a month I take an extended trip, spending the majority
of my time on the islands at present. These are wonderful days
spent exploring what I believe to be some of the world’s
most dramatic and beautiful coastlines, storing up images for
future compositions. In comparison to this, working in my Argyll
studio may sound less exciting - 8am-3pm six days a week painting
- but in fact these days are also immensely pleasurable, as
painting is what I love to do. The one drawback to this rewarding
existence is spending most evenings dealing with the extraordinary
amount of admin I seem to generate!
The Creative Impulse...
I have never seen anything to compare with the distinctive quality
of Scottish West Coast light, and it is this that provides the
single greatest inspiration for my work. It brings a dazzling
clarity to the landscape it illuminates, which I constantly
strive to capture in my paintings. I have visited some exceptionally
beautiful areas over time and painting on location has provided
an immense source of inspiration. More than ever I have found
the colour spectrum seeming to shift as I look more closely
at a scene, and as always my palette has been a profoundly expressive
tool in conveying both appearance and atmosphere.
I admire a huge number of artists across the whole spectrum
of art history but my main creative influences are the Expressionists,
particularly Chaim Soutine, Emil Nolde and Oskar Kokoschka.
Each of these individuals presents a world vibrating with energy
and movement, and they in their turn owe much to the dynamic
work of Vincent Van Gogh, as do I. For sheer beauty of colour
and interpretative freedom I hold Marc Chagall in high regard,
while the great John Eardley’ s dictum that ‘Painting
is like breathing - you have to do it’ is the ruling precept
of my life!
The Creative Process...
A picture begins for me when I find a particular vista that
captures my imagination. I used to paint on location but found
that the technical side would take over and I would produce
an accurate representation of what I saw, rather than of how
I felt about what I saw. Nowadays, while I sketch and photograph
to keep the image fresh in my mind, what is more important to
me is how I responded to what I saw, and what effect it had
on me personally. This emotional or perhaps creative response
is what I believe breathes life into my work.
I am an energetic and spontaneous painter, and for this reason
I like to use oil, even though I think it is one of the more
difficult media to work with. With this spontaneity so integral
to my style I like the immediacy it gives me, in that I do not
have to wait for each layer to dry. Oil painting has moved on
from the laborious process of old of course, where layers of
glazes were laid down in a painstaking and orderly manner! Now,
the way an individual artist handles the paint and the surface
texture of the painting are recognised as making a huge contribution
to the overall impact of the composition.
Background...
John Lowrie Morrison was born in Glasgow in 1948, and from an
early age he showed a talent for art. After completing a degree
in Drawing and Painting at Glasgow School of Art he set out
to pursue a career in art and design; he funded his painting
by teaching, firstly as Head of Art and Design at Lochgilphead
High School and then as Art Adviser for the Strathclyde Region.
During this formative period John travelled extensively around
Europe with his family and it was here that he began to develop
the distinctive style which has brought him so much success.
Working in oil on paper or canvas, his vigorous application
of paint in carefree, seemingly random strokes breaths life
into his work, which contrasts the rugged scenery of the Scottish
Highlands with the more prosaic human elements of crofts, inlets
and villages. His bold use of colour adds an energy and intensity
to each image which persuades us not simply to view the landscape,
but rather to experience it. John now devotes himself to painting
full time, and has held a number of successful exhibitions both
in the UK and as far afield as Hong Kong and New York; his images
can now be found in many prestigious private and corporate collections
throughout the world. He is well known for his charity work
and his paintings have become famous with the stars; Madonna
has six in her collection and Sting has also purchased two.
