Artist Statement
Disengage from distraction. Focus. Enjoy.
“Taxes” are innate, behavioural, kinetic responses of an organism in response to a stimulus.
The slender, delicately balanced works of “Taxes” respond to slight changes in their environment with gentle movement. Each subtly moving work provides an opportunity to turn away from the stimulus/response/reward cycle of our digital culture and engage in the process of reflection and slowly gathering experience.
These small pieces are studies for a series of larger scale kinetic works.
Biography
Robert Morris is a multi-disciplinary artist. His work, informed by decades of traditional boat building, is profoundly physical, and deeply engaged with material qualities and relationships.
A retired Coquitlam high school art and animation teacher, Robert Morris has worked at numerous Canadian museums galleries and historic sites.
Robert has taught traditional Arctic qajaq (kayak) building for thirty years across North America and in Taiwan. The NFB documentary “Caribou Kayak” documents his third summer working with elders in Kugaaruk NT, building Netsilingmeot qajat.
His first solo exhibition, “Colonial Lines”, was presented at Place des Arts in Coquitlam in the spring of 2025.
He is the author of “Building Skin on Frame Boats”, and was a founding co-coordinator of Gallery Gachet in Vancouver.
Robert maintains a studio at Maker Labs in Vancouver.
Website: robertmorris.ca