Artist Spotlight - L. Scooter Morris — Contemporary Art Curator Magazine

Biography

I was lucky to have grown up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where there were incredible arts programs, including through the Carnegie Museum. I began my arts education through public education and in the museum programs. Later, I attended Tyler School of Art, Temple University in Philadelphia and Rome, Italy.

We Are The People, 2025, Acrylic and Mixed Media, 152.4x121.92x5.08

I left school for a year to move to Los Angeles, California and received my B.F.A. from University of Southern California. Subsequently, I took post graduate courses at UCLA. After, moving to New Mexico, I was greatly influenced by the atmosphere and environment and that influenced me to evolve the style of painting I call, Sculpted Paintings.

Time And Again, 2025, Acrylic and Mixed Media, 76.2x228.6x3.81

I work primarily on created surfaces that are acrylic and canvas on canvas with varying texture and mixed media. The materials I use, allow a certain space in time. My work has been shown throughout the United States and in Europe and I am currently showing the paintings in Santa Fe, New Mexico at Aurelia Gallery on Canyon Road.

Adornment, 2024, Acrylic and Mixed media, 91.44x91.44x5.08

Artist Statement

I am a sensory illusionist. I gather the experience of being in a moment, at a place, at a time. I use that information to create the image. It is the sense of how the light and the color filters through the image and the atmosphere you might be surrounded by at that moment in time.

The People Speak, 2025, Acrylic and mixed media, 76.2x76.2x3.81

There is a thread of something real that exists above everything else. And in trying to reach the truth, you are trying to make it real through beauty, through something beautiful. In that ultimate moment of sensory experience also exists a glimmer of hope, the promise of something bigger than we are.

Lawyers, Guns And Money, 2025, Acrylic and Mixed Media, 91.44x121.92x7.62

My goal is to make artwork that is so beautiful it cuts to the heart of what is true, to create art that is of this moment, but exists as something timeless. It resonates with the person viewing the work as real although it is not quite realistic. It has meaning, although that is not specifically stated because of its use of color or symbolism, or imagery.

Felon, 2025, Acrylic and Mixed media, 76.2x121.92x5.08

When I was six years old, I went to the room where my grandmother was sewing something on a sewing machine. She was self- taught at design and construction, but I now believe she could have made anything. I asked her to sew a dish towel in several places, she asked me why and I explained that it would become a fashionable carry-all.

I Really Live Here-1, 2025, Acrylic and Mixed Media, 35.56x35.56x5.08

She immediately told my mother and the two of them found art classes for me to attend. Since that time, I have been using many mediums to explore “truth” through creativity. Years later, after moving to New Mexico, the Southwest inspired my multi-dimensional art practice.

https://www.lscootermorris.com
https://www.instagram.com/scootermorris/
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https://aureliagallery.com/artists/47-l.-scooter-morris/biography/
https://www.lscootermorris.com/exhibitions#/wearethepeople/
https://www.lscootermorris.com/blog