THE FOUR SEASONS
Taking the cue from his much loved Shell Guides of the 1950’s & 60’s along with The Ladybird Book titles ‘What to Look For In Summer’, ‘Autumn’, ‘Winter’ & ‘Spring’ Artist Barrie Morris has created a quartet of masterworks. Each upscale painting focuses upon the flora and fauna of the circling year. Morris makes no secret of his passion for the county of Norfolk which has provided the inspiration for many of his paintings during the past twenty years or so. His ‘Quirks & Quiddities’ exhibition celebrated the eccentrics, famous and infamous of the county; be it Anne Boleyn, The Vicar of Stiffkey or Jack Valentine of the Norwich lanes and alleyways. Many of his past bird and beast paintings are set in the shadow of well known landmarks including Walsingham Abbey, St. Nicholas’ Salthouse, Cley Mill or the pines and dunes of Holkham. For his latest visual project Barrie takes us to four distinctive locations which provide the backdrop to a seasonal performance by the nature that can be found there. Not unlike a set design with the performers on their stage.
Blickling Hall provides the winter scene; Horsey Mill and Broad the spring; Blakeney Point hosts summer. Finally, an explosion of colour and movement for autumn takes place before the haunting mausoleum designed by Joseph Bonomi for Lady Caroline Suffield, the extraordinary structure can be found deep in the woodlands of the Blickling estate. In each of the new paintings, Barrie Morris has considered both the resident and visiting nature, for example Swallows and Cuckoos with Water Voles and Toads in ‘Spring’. Wheatears and Terns with Common Seals and Shell Duck in ‘Summer’. The paintings also highlight the shifting of species, many absent from the 1950’s & 60’s guides but now commonplace or certainly to be found in numbers; Grey Squirrel, Chinese Water Deer, Muntjac, Egrets and Red Kite for example. ‘Seek and Find’ at The Red Dot Gallery during November.
BARRIE MORRIS creates highly imaginative, dazzlingly detailed, mixed media compositions on an eclectic range of often quirky subjects.
He excelled in Art at the only green-blazered Grammar School in Leicester and qualified as a Typographer at Art College in the swinging sixties.
From here he spent an entire career as an Advertising Art Director creating ‘Art’ to sell ‘Things’.
Since the early 21st century he’s been creating ‘Art’ to sell.
His portfolio – always in demand for its caricatures, portraits and cartoons, is now enriched by unique landscapes, still lives, flora and fauna, abstracts. animals, birds and buildings, often bordering on the surreal; always exquisitely depicted.
In 2015, he became a Red Dot Artist. His maiden sell-out exhibition ‘Strangely drawn to Norfolk’ was a collection of original paintings exploring the county’s architectural and natural treasures.
The county with which he and his wife share a passionate affair has been a second home and
inspiration for them since the nineteen eighties. Now painting it is a sheer delight.
His enthusiasm for painting and appreciation of visual arts is often conducted to the soundtrack of Claud Debussy’s music, the rawness of The Pretty Things and the poetry of Sir John Betjeman. (He is really still really a rock drummer at heart).
Barrie’s unmistakeable style has led to Red Dot Gallery owner Colin Rawlings commenting that his “colourful and lively works are distinctive to the point that it’s not hard to spot a Morris!”
