David Morris – Visual Artist

ARTIST BIO

Kansas City-based digital artist, David D. Morris, has been practicing his craft since the early 1980s. He primarily focused on high-end advertising photography and video, specializing in food and people photography for clients such as AMC Theaters, Tyson Foods, and The Hershey Corporation. Although recently retired, he’s focusing on digital art, including artificial intelligence imaging. Before retiring, David and his wife owned Studio 2131, where they ran their businesses, David Morris Photography and Kansas City Event Space.

When not engaged in some form of artistic endeavor, David loves listening to jazz, gardening, and being involved in his community. David and his wife have both vegetable and flower gardens, and they have been featured on the Shawnee Garden Tour three times. Morris is a former Shawnee City Councilman, Chairman of the Crossroads Arts District, Co-founder of Rebuilding Together Shawnee, and KCSCP Board Member. David’s been awarded the Kansas City, Missouri, Urban Hero Award, and the Shawnee Citizen of the Year Award for his civic leadership.

Currently, Morris is working on a body of digital art that has evolved out of his love for jazz. He is digitally illustrating what he experiences when listening to jazz. David uses a variety of computer software programs to develop, compose, retouch, refine, and print his work. For just one image, this process can take weeks to execute and refine before he feels it expresses what he visually experiences when listening to a particular song.

ARTIST STATEMENT

“Since 1988, I’ve had the pleasure of successfully expressing my creative vision through advertising and fine art photography. Having recently retired, I’ve realized that the need for creative expression hasn’t followed suit. For the past two decades, all my photography and art has been in digital form. I use a variety of computer software programs to develop, compose, retouch, refine, enlarge, and print my work. I start by using A.I. imaging to help develop my concept and define my thoughts. I like to paraphrase a famous photographer’s quote about art. “It’s an illusion to think art is created by the tools we use. The truth is art is created with our eyes, heart, and mind. What tools we use to express our vision is irrelevant.” Like all artists, it’s inevitable that one can see the influence of other artists in my work, but I hope one can also see my unique creative vision clearly shining past those influences.”

In this body of work, Morris wanted to explore and illustrate, in an abstract visual form, what he feels, sees, and hears when listening to jazz. Although jazz can appear to sound random and free form, if you visualize the entire piece, it can communicate a beautiful and cohesive composition. Jazz is characterized by propulsive syncopated rhythms, polyphonic ensemble playing, varying degrees of improvisation, and often deliberate distortions in pitch and timbre. When David Morris hears jazz, he sees simple lines, lines that twist, turn, and overlap, he sees light and dark, faded soft and hard edges, repeated patterns, random whirls, square boxes, layers, color, black and white, and texture. At the same time, Morris feels and hears harmony and confusion, sadness and joy, freedom and restraint, competition and isolation, movement, and silence. His hope is that your eyes see, your heart feels, and your mind perceives something similar in my images.

OBJECTIVE/SUMMARY

Throughout my commercial and fine art career, my purpose has been to communicate to the viewer, what I’m feeling, thinking and seeing. I enjoy Jazz. A lot of my current abstract work is influenced by listening to jazz. Although jazz can appear to sound random and disorganized, if one visualizes the entire piece, it can communicate a beautiful and cohesive visual composition. My abstract work is meant to visually show you what I experience when I listen to jazz.

EXPERIENCE

VP, Morris Maintenance Lawn — 1975-1980
Work, manage, and oversee Lawn and Landscape service
Landscape Supervisor, Suburban Lawn — 1980-1987
Manage and oversee landscape crew
Owner, David Morris Photography — 1988-2023
Advertising photographer/video director. Specializing in Food, People, and Product photography. Clients include: AMC, Tyson, Ford, Science Diet, Crockpot, Hostess Brands.

EDUCATION

Johnson County Community College – Associates Degree – Fine Arts
Various non-credit classes in Fine Art, Photography and Design

BOARDS/HONORS

ASMP board 1988 – 1991
Crossroads Infrastructure Committee 2000 – 2002
Crossroads Neighborhood Chairman 2002 – 2005
Rebuilding Together Shawnee Chairman 2003 – 2007
KCMO Urban Hero Award 2005
Shawnee City Councilman 2005 – 2007
Shawnee Citizen of the Year 2007
Numerous Addy Award – Photography 1990 – 2015