In Conversation with Local Artists: Shaun Morris
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Our current series on the Selly Manor Museum blog involves interviewing artists from Bournville, Birmingham and the surrounding areas, finding out about their creative processes and inspirations, their views on Bournville and its community, and their upcoming projects and exhibitions. Selly Manor is keen to spotlight local artists who keep our community a vibrant and dynamic place to live.
Our next post focuses on local artist Shaun Morris, who captures the 'geography of nowhere' in his paintings; the beauty and intrigue of overlooked everyday spaces.
Artist Shaun Morris
Q1: Could you tell us a little about yourself and your work as an artist?
"I’m a Birmingham-based painter whose work explores the intersections of place, memory and everyday experience. Working across landscape, portraiture and still life, I draw inspiration from the urban and post-industrial environments of Birmingham and the Black Country. I’m particularly interested in overlooked or transitional spaces: canal towpaths, supermarket car parks, bus stops, edgelands, motorways, housing estates and areas of common ground that quietly shape contemporary life."
Q2: How does Bournville (and/or the surrounding areas) inspire your work?
"My practice is rooted in close observation of my surroundings. I live and work in Kings Heath and continually find inspiration in South Birmingham and its surrounding neighbourhoods, including Bournville, Selly Oak and Stirchley. Birmingham is a city with a complex history and an exceptionally diverse community, but it also seems to exist in a constant state of change. In this part of the city, I’m always discovering something new. These changes are rarely dramatic; instead, they are subtle, incremental shifts that continually alter the landscape and, in turn, the subject matter of my paintings."
'Thomas of Gloucester' by Shaun Morris
Q3: Bournville is surrounded by both green spaces and city scape – how do each of these influence your work?
"Walking is an important part of my practice. For around ten years I have made regular night walks, which have become an ongoing source of material for my paintings. I’m attracted to the way familiar places are transformed after dark: the quietness, altered light and sense of uncertainty can make the everyday appear strange or uncanny. My night paintings tend to focus on urban and suburban locations, where the ordinary landscape takes on a different psychological quality.
More recently, I have become increasingly interested in Birmingham’s parks and green spaces as places of communal gathering. I’m drawn to the ways people have sought connection and collective experience, particularly in the period following Covid and the increased awareness of social isolation. I also spend time walking along Birmingham’s canals, where the landscape continually shifts between the industrial, the domestic and the natural. From the towpath, I encounter factories, the backs of retail parks, gardens, wildlife and changing vegetation. These juxtapositions offer a constantly evolving picture of the city."
'Join Hands' by Shaun Morris
Q4: Is there a particular piece of local history or heritage that you find yourself drawn to? Why do you think this is?
"I’m not particularly drawn to specific sites of local historical importance or traditional monuments. Instead, my monuments might be the electricity pylons standing at the edge of a housing estate, or the enormous concrete pillars of Spaghetti Junction rising above you like the architecture of a vast cathedral. I’m much more interested in the present and in what the everyday landscape tells us about how we live now.
I’m particularly fascinated by what has been described as the ‘geography of nowhere’: the vast, often anonymous landscape of identical retail parks, supermarkets, transit hubs and commercial developments that occupy many of our urban edges. Equally revealing are the changing high streets, increasingly occupied by vape shops, betting shops and other businesses that reflect shifts in contemporary consumer culture. These places may appear unremarkable, but I see them as repositories of stories about work, consumption, community, aspiration and social change."
'Highway Anxiety' by Shaun Morris
Q5: Why do you think art is important to the local community?
"Painting allows me to slow down and look more closely at the environments and communities around me. In an increasingly screen-based and isolated world, I believe there is real value in taking time to observe the places we inhabit and to recognise the character, histories and everyday experiences that can easily be overlooked. Art can create a space for this kind of attention, helping us to see familiar surroundings differently and to reflect on what makes a place feel like home.
For me, painting is both a physical and contemplative activity: a way of connecting the hand, eye and heart, as David Hockney has described it, while also creating a visual record of the world around me. I am interested in how painting can contribute to a sense of place and belonging, bringing attention to ordinary streets, landscapes and shared spaces and giving them significance within the wider story of a community. Art can provide a means of opening conversations, encouraging people to look again at their surroundings and to recognise value in the everyday.
Alongside my studio practice, I lecture in Fine Art at a college in Birmingham. I live and work in Kings Heath, and my continued engagement with Birmingham and its surrounding landscape remains central to both my painting and my understanding of the world around me. Being part of this community informs what I choose to paint and reinforces my belief that art has an important role in connecting people with the places they live, the experiences they share and the communities of which they are part."
'House of a hundred rooms' by Shaun Morris
Q6: How do you feel your art connects with the people of Bournville/Birmingham? Or how do the people of Bournville/Birmingham connect with your work?
"As my paintings are rooted in observations made across Birmingham and the Black Country, I see them as fragments of a much larger picture of the city and its surrounding landscape. Rather than focusing on its most recognisable landmarks or spectacular views, I’m drawn to overlooked corners, quieter spaces and the ordinary, everyday places where much of life actually takes place. In this sense, the paintings offer an alternative view of the region: one concerned less with the image of the city that is presented to visitors and more with the experience of those who live here. Yet these places and experiences are not unique to Birmingham. They are part of a wider contemporary landscape, and I hope the paintings can speak to people who recognise something of their own surroundings in these seemingly ordinary fragments of place."
'Luton Van' by Shaun Morris
Q7: Do you have a favourite artwork that you’ve created that you could talk us through?
"I actually have two paintings that I would single out as personal favourites at the moment, and interestingly, both depict bus stops. The first is an empty, slightly eerie bus stop that I painted during the week I was sent home from work at the beginning of the Covid pandemic. A few months later, it unexpectedly earned me a place on Sky Arts’ Landscape Artist of the Year, which was a bit of a shock. Someone bought the painting after the programme was broadcast, although I have to admit that I regret selling it. The second is one of my most recent paintings, depicting a small group of people waiting at a bus stop in Selly Oak as winter evening begins to fall. I’m particularly pleased with this painting because of its quiet atmosphere and the sense of an ordinary moment being briefly held in time. It has also just been selected for the Wrexham Painting Prize, which I’m delighted about. It feels fitting that two paintings of such everyday places have become particularly significant to me."
The artwork that earned Shaun a place on Sky Arts' Landscape Artist of the Year
'Waiting for the bus home' by Shaun Morris
Q8: What is next for you – do you have any upcoming projects or exhibitions that you’re excited about?
"As well as being selected for the Wrexham Painting Prize, I’m excited to be taking part in ‘Vista: 10 Midlands Landscape Painters’ a group exhibition curated by art historian Ruth Millington at The Core Gallery in Solihull. I’m also trying to get a collaboration of some sort off the ground with the Danish Painter, Jamie Wallace, who is in Copenhagen based around our shared interest in landscape painting."
Thank you to Shaun for sharing his creative process and encouraging us all to notice and appreciate our surroundings and what they can tell us. If you would like to see more of Shaun's work, head to his website www.shaunmorrispaintings.com or visit his Instagram page @shaun_morris_paintings
Written by Niamh Reid, Museum Assistant