Since 1982, Stephen Morris has been fortunate enough
to live in one of the most beautiful locations in
the UK - the Isles of Scilly. From early teens, his
twin passions were food and painting (not necessarily
in that order!), however it was the former that led
him to his first successful career. This spanned twenty
five years in hotel and catering both as a hotel manager
and running his own guest house. In 2000, he changed
direction completely and took up a new career of professional
artist. He has since had considerable success, establishing
a new gallery on the islands to showcase his work
and having his first one-man exhibition at a luxury
island hotel.
Biography
Stephen was born in Solihull in 1957 and spent most
of his formative years in Moseley, Birmingham where
he attended Wheelers Land Secondary School. His earliest
art workbooks show a talent for pencil and charcoal
drawing and his passion for churches and cathedrals
is well represented in their pages. After taking his
Art O level a year early at the age of 15, he dropped
formal art education and went to Birmingham College
of Food to study for a HND in Hotel and Catering,
achieving final membership of the H.C.I.M.A at the
age of nineteen. During a subsequent period of work
experience, he spent time working in the kitchens
of renowned chef Sean Hill.
Stephen met his wife, Lois, while
working in a hotel in Buckinghamshire and they married
in May 1979. After their wedding, they moved to Bury
St. Edmonds where they worked as deputy management
in this busy Suffolk market town for two years. They
bought a tiny cottage in a village on the Norfolk
Suffolk border which became their haven from a busy
working life. During their time in East Anglia, Stephen
painted the flat landscape with its charming churches
and the famous Rose Gardens and medieval ruins of
the Abby of Bury St. Edmonds. In October 1981, they
flew across the Atlantic to enjoy a two month winter
holiday with the Canadian branch of Lois' family.
Here, the majestic scenery of the Lakes region of
Ontario inspired Stephen to paint the Blackwater Rapids,
Red Hores Lake and rustic wooden houses during his
visit.
On their return from Canada, they
moved to the Isles of Scilly where they joined Stephen's
Uncle and Aunt in running their busy and successful
guest house. For a few years, in the early 1980s,
Stephen and Nan were able to spend valuable time together,
painting the beautiful island scenery. However, the
birth of Simon in 1985 and Joy in 1987 together with
the 'retirement' of Nan and Frank from the guest house,
meant that Stephen and Lois were now running the business
on their own. This left him precious little time to
indulge his passion for painting. Joy's diagnosis
of autism with sever learning difficulties and the
realisation that she would have to move to mainland
specialist residential education at the age of sixteen,
prompted Lois and Stephen's decision to close the
guest house in 2000. They converted the property to
self catering apartments and relocated the separate
Nan Heath Studio, still run by Stephen's uncle Frank,
into the building. Today they run Glandore Gallery,
selling Stephen's original watercolour artworks and
prints together with a range of prints and cards featuring
Nan's watercolours.
About My Art
Many who view Stephen's work say that he paints in
a similar style to his late aunt - Nan Heath, a respected
and successful watercolour artist and member of Staffordshire
Society of Artists. However Stephen has developed
his own unique style and, in his later paintings,
adopted a versatile narrower format which can be used
horizontally or vertically. The beauty and variety
of Scilly is found in its unusual light and changing
moods, providing enough variety and inspiration for
many lifetimes of paintings!
Stephen paints 'en plein air' because
he feels that it captures the immediacy and freshness
of the Scillonian landscape. He is strongly drawn
to colour, occasionally painting well-known island
views but always with a different and perhaps unusual
perspective. Preferring the traditional use of watercolour
to produce sweeping atmospheric skies and sea, Stephen
does not use body colour in his artwork. He does use
a similar palette of colours to Nan but tends to be
bolder and, of late, is mixing his media with the
addition of inks and pastels. In the past, he experimented
with a range of different media from oils to pastles,
inks to charcoal, on projects like murals and large
works.
2003 saw Stephen's first solo exhibition,
held at St Marys Hall Hotel on st. Marys, Isles of
Scilly. He particularly wanted to have his first Exhibition
on Scilly and was pleased that the majority of original
watercolours were acquired by islanders who, perhaps,
do not visit Glandore Gallery where his work is displayed.
Future exhibitions will probably take place further
afield in mainland locations. Stephen would also like
to extend his sources, taking in paintings created
on various trips abroad and also other parts of the
UK. Recently he exhibited in France as part of the
Madrid based Galeria d'Arte Gaudi's exhibition at
the Lille "ArtEvent" (Lille was the European
City of Culture 2004)
