Untitled 1966
Gouache on paper
78 x 62
University of Victoria Acquisition Fund

British, Canadian 1942-

Michael Morris was at the frontier of international avant-garde painting trends during the 1960s. Raised in Greater Victoria, Morris traveled between the Island and Vancouver becoming immersed in alternative artistic practices. Morris received a Canada Council Fellowship in 1965 to study at the Slade School of Fine Art in the midst of the British pop art revolution. This experience led to painting abstract gouaches with hard edges, repeated stripes, and chromatic gradations that played with the illusion of perspective. In the late 60s and early 70s, Morris experimented with collaborative correspondence and performance-based art outside of institutional academic and commercial venues.