James Morse

b. Hinsdale, IL, 1982

James Morse is a multi-disciplinary artist who appropriates the genre of landscape paintings in an abstracted language of autumnal hues on raw linen or wood. For Morse, landscape serves as a universally understood vocabulary across cultures, connecting us to the land, our source of nourishment and eventual return. Working from a combination of studies from life and memory, the artist’s thought process and the passage of time are evident through his meticulous mark-making, traces of underlying grids, alterations in color, layered or wiped away areas of paint. These works embrace the interpretive essence of seeing and remembering, engaging with the land through feeling rather than reproduction.

Morse studied graphic design at the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, CA, before pursuing a degree in philosophy at Hope College on the shores of Lake Michigan. He worked as a photographer and graphic designer before attending Columbia College in Chicago to pursue an MFA in photography.