Michael Morris

Michael Morris (1942–2022) was born in Saltdean, England, and emigrated to Victoria in 1946. In his roles as curator and, primarily, as an artist, Morris was a key figure of the West Coast art scene from the 1960s to the present. Morris studied at the University of Victoria and then at the Vancouver School of Art, followed by graduate studies at Slade School of Fine Art at the University College London, during the 1960s. There he became interested in the work of Fluxus and the European avant-garde, which had a profound influence on his work and on the Vancouver experimental art scene in general. In 1969 he founded Image Bank with Vincent Trasov, a system of postal correspondence between participating artists for the exchange of information and ideas. Morris was acting curator of the Vancouver Art Gallery and organized art events and exhibitions at the Centre for Communications and the Arts at Simon Fraser University from 1967 to 1970, and held many guest curatorships at other institutions. In 1973, he co-founded the Western Front — one of Canada’s first artist-run centres — and served as co-director for seven years. In 1990 he and Trasov founded the Morris/Trasov Archive, now housed at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, to research contemporary art. Morris has participated in artist-in-residence programs both in Canada at the Banff Centre (1990) and at Open Studio (2003) and internationally at Berlin Kunstlerprogramm (1981–1998). Morris has had solo and collaborative exhibitions nationally and internationally, and is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Audain Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Visual Arts (2015), the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts (2011) and an Honorary Doctorate from Emily Carr University of Art + Design.