Frank Morrison

His style developed over years of fusing together his inspirations. Growing up in
the 1980s, the hip-hop counterculture of dance and graffiti art offered a newfound
sense of control over the story and culture within the African American
community. Morrison could experiment with color and form. The fluidity of his
approach carried over into his figurative work. Deeply inspired by the greats
throughout art history, he became enamored with the artistic genius he
encountered as a young man visiting the Louvre, he added to his artistic
foundations with the techniques of the masters that came before him. The
Renaissance and Raphaelites introduced him to the drama of oil painting. Goya
and El Greco taught him to manipulate his scenes to encapsulate expressive forms
with social critiques.

He found himself inspired by the work of the African American Neo-Mannerist
painters. Pioneering artists like Ernie Barnes subverted realism with the unseen
daily life of being Black in America in the mid-20th century. Morrison was
captivated by the way they created otherworldly, elongated human forms and color
palettes that evoked a resonating sense of culture and community. He incorporated
elements of the Pop Artists, such as cultural commodities, large scale, and intense
colors, to add to the conversations of modernity he evoked. He combined the
documentary approach of the early 20th century Ashcan School, examining his
surroundings, and adding in components from his favorite illustrators, such as Al
Hirschfeld and Miguel Covarrubias. He built upon these artists, translating this
aesthetic through a modern lens, looking at his own childhood memories, the
advances of Black culture, and his version of the everyday.