Botanical landscapes by Paul Morrison

Botanical landscapes by Paul Morrison. English painter Paul Morrison was born in Liverpool in 1966. He graduated from Goldsmiths College of Art in London and Hugh Baird College. Morrison is currently living and working in Sheffield. Paul Morrison is best known for his large monochromatic botanical landscapes painted in two coats of acrylic paint. They are then scanned into a computer, manipulated and projected onto the canvas. The different elements tend to be disproportionate in size. Tiny plants become huge, while massive trees shrink. This is called ‘cognitive landscape’. His first one-person show was in London in 1996 and since then he has displayed his work in various exhibitions across the UK, Europe and America.

Morrison alters our sense of scale, perspective, and positive-negative space to create visually striking compositions. Spiky brush and trees often obscure the view beyond the immediate foreground. Dandelion plants and other flora are enlarged to many times their normal size. Referencing Pop art and Op art as well as neo-romantic bookplate illustrations and the graphic art of Aubrey Beardsley, Morrison’s Pop-naturalist landscapes flirt with abstraction in jarring and unexpectedly seductive ways.

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