Michael Morris

2015 Audain Prize for the Visual Arts

Michael Morris is a key figure in the West Coast art scene. A widely acclaimed artist, educator and curator, he most notably co-founded Image Bank in 1969 and the Western Front in 1973. Much like the institutions he founded, Michael Morris’ art was interested in dissolving conventions. Influenced by Fluxus and Conceptualism, Michael Morris expanded Vancouver’s identity beyond landscape art to being a hub for postmodern art.

Michael Morris was born in Saldean, England in 1942. His mother moved him to Canada when he was four. At fourteen, Michael Morris’ fine art education began and he studied under German painter and printmaker Herbert Siebner. In 1960, he started attending the University of Victoria before transferring to the Vancouver School of Art (currently Emily Carr University of Art and Design) a year later. At the Vancouver School of Art, he had the opportunity to study under influential Canadian artists Jack Shadbolt, Roy Kiyooka and Don Jarvis. After graduating with honours in 1964, Michael Morris completed two years of post-graduate studies at the Slade School of Fine Art at the University College London, where he was exposed to Fluxus and European avant-garde works.

In 1966, Michael Morris returned to Vancouver and became the acting curator for the Vancouver Art Gallery. In 1969, Michael Morris and Vincent Trasov created Image Bank, with the purpose if facilitating the exchange of ideas and information between artists through the postal system.

In 1973, he and six other Fluxus-influenced artists and musicians founded the Western Front. It was one of the first artist-run centres in Canada and became a model for cooperatively owned live-work spaces for artists.

In 1981, at the invitation of the DAAD Berliner Kunstler-programm, Michael Morris and Vincent Trasov accepted a residency in Berlin. During this time he returned to painting, producing watercolours on a range of subjects. He returned to Canada in 1998 and participated in artist-in-residence programs at the Banff Centre (2000) and Open Studio in Vancouver (2003).

Michael Morris has established a strong international reputation. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humanities in 2005 by the Emily Carr University of Art and Design, the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2011, and the Audain Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Visual Arts in 2015. Michael Morris currently lives in Victoria, British Columbia where he continues to work.