JOHN Morris' atmospheric paintings of the Hawkesbury River will finally receive a public showing when his exhibition, Fleeting, opens at The Owens Collective from July 1.
Due to the pandemic the exhibition was postponed on three occasions, and as a result, several pieces were sold without a public showing and new work had to be created to take their place.
The long-awaited exhibition features atmospheric paintings of the Hawkesbury River landscape. The Newcastle artist's last exhibition was held in 2020 and also featured paintings of the Hawkesbury River landscape.
A couple who purchased a work at that show, offered Morris the use of their home at Milsons Passage located on the Hawkesbury. Morris took the opportunity to visit the small, isolated community, hiring a dinghy and exploring hard-to-reach places including Bar Island, where he found the ruins of a chapel and the graveyard of early white settlers.
While there, Morris would rise at 5am to watch sun rise over the river.
"I was struck by the ephemeral nature of what I was seeing," Morris says.
"One minute it was there and the next, it was gone. It was etched in my consciousness, and I became obsessed with capturing these moments in time, their transience and precariousness.
"In this show I focused on the water surface, not so much the bigger spaces, escarpments and plateau, but fell into concentrating on the reflections, tides and mist of the river."
Morris's process includes working from digital images which he manipulates and then creates compositional sketches. He paints with thin layers of oil, working wet in wet and building up the paint.
For over 25 years Morris has been a leading light in the art education sector as one of the head teachers at the Newcastle Art School at TAFE. He's mentored thousands of students, although he no longer teaches.
Morris' awards include a shortlisting in the 2022 Muswellbrook Art Prize and being a finalist in the 2019 Moran Portrait Prize.
Earlier this year, Morris was caught up in the Wickham warehouse fire and the resulting asbestos contamination, with his home and studio affected.
After deep cleaning and much time had elapsed, the artist was just getting back into his groove when a fall from a bicycle landed him in hospital for surgery on his painting arm.
