ROBERT MORRIS PHOTOGRAPHY

Schmidt's Fotoshop (Detail of Facade), Taft, California, 2006

The inspiration for the photographic work of Robert Morris comes primarily from the man-made environment. Robert's main interest has long been the history of art and architecture, and his work before 2001 concentrated on the visually harmonious towns, formal gardens, and historic buildings of Europe. His more recent work focuses on his native California and nearby states, where he seeks out and photographs colorful relics of the recent past, some of them abandoned and decaying, others still clinging to life. These subjects are notable more for their oddity, quirkiness, and color than for any intrinsic architectural merit, a quality which is usually absent. Among the buildings portrayed here, old cinemas and a series of cinema ticket booths merit their own galleries.

Robert's newest project, "Imaginary Landscapes," (begun in late 2009) is a departure from his previous work. Though not a nature photographer, he has incorporated the Joshua Tree desert, where he currently resides, into a series of scenes with themes inspired largely by mythology, art, literature, and his own fantasies. These pictures combine desert backgrounds, architectural elements, and people.