Morgan Fisher
Printed on Epson Fine Art paper,
A3 size - £175 GBP,
A2 - £265 GBP.
To
see a larger image please click on any of the thumbnail images
below.
|
GalleryOne |
 |
|
|
|
| "Shindo Ichi" |
"Shindo Ni" |
"Shindo San" |
"Shindo Shi" |
 |
|
|
|
| "Shindo Go" |
"Shindo Roku" |
"Shindo Shishi" |
"Shindo Hachi" |
 |
|
|
|
| "Shindo Kyu" |
"Shindo Jyu" |
|
|
|
GalleryTwo |
 |
|
|
|
| "Tamashii Ichi" |
"Tamashii Ni" |
"Tamashii San" |
"Tamashii Shi" |
 |
|
|
|
| "Tamashii Go" |
"Tamashii Roku" |
"Tamashii Shichi" |
"Tamashii Hachi" |
 |
|
|
|
| "Tamashii Kyu" |
"Tamashii Jyu" |
"Tamashii Jyuichi" |
"Tamashii Jyuni" |
 |
|
|
|
| "Tamashii Jyusan" |
"Tamashii Jyuyon" |
"Tamashii Jyugo" |
"Tamashii Jyuroku" |
 |
|
|
|
| "Tamashii Jyushichi" |
"Tamashii Jyuhachi" |
"Tamashii Jyukyu" |
"Tamashii Nijyu" |
BIOGRAPHY
 Born in London, England, 1st January 1950.
From 1968 to the present Morgan has led an active international life as a musician. Artists he has played keyboards with include
The Love Affair (#1 hit in 1968), Mott the Hoople (produced by David Bowie), Yoko Ono, and Queen. Constantly involved in creative
projects as player, composer, arranger and producer, he has become one of the leading TV commercial music writers in Japan. All
his life he has pursued photography as an art, as well as documenting much of his music life using still and movie cameras. Since
moving to Japan in 1985 he has gradually evolved a unique style of abstract photography, and is now concentrating his efforts on
expanding his work as a light painter, while maintaining a varied musical career.
Solo exhibitions
ICA • London, UK 1980
NTT (Nippon Telephone) Gallery • Tokyo, Japan 1987
Roppongi Wave • Tokyo, Japan 1988
Striped House Museum • Tokyo, Japan 1989
Superdeluxe Gallery • Tokyo, Japan 2007
Cool Train Gallery • Tokyo, Japan 2007
Private collections
Amana Images, Inc. • Tokyo, Japan
Virginie Aussedat • Paris, France
Susan Carlyle • Cambridge, UK
Nabra El Din • CA, USA
Premda Haberle • CA, USA
Valerie Kausen • CA, USA
Caroline Kerr-Smith • London, UK
Klein-Dytham Architects • Tokyo, Japan
Mike Kubeck • Tokyo, Japan
Living By Design • Tokyo, Japan
Album covers
Photographer and/or cover designer for many of
his own music albums, as well as the following:
Hybrid Kids • various imaginary artists • UK 1978
Slow Music • Lol Coxhill & Morgan Fisher • UK 1980
Miniatures • 51 artists • UK 1980
A Slice of Life • various artists • Japan 1985
Miniatures 2 • 60 artists • UK/Japan, 2000
Neverless • Roedelius & Morgan Fisher • Austria 2005
Fragile Perfection • Freesscape • Japan 2007
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
Many people have commented that these light paintings emanate a musical feeling. Whenever I make them I experience the exact same energy that I get from my musical improvisations - only the tools are different. The moment of creation,
whether it be the tai-chi dance of a camera before a flame, or the shiatsu dance of hands over a keyboard, is identical.
They are both a balancing act out there on the high tightrope between chaos and control.
 When I was a young teenager at school in London, I avidly studied a scientific textbook simply entitled Sound and Light,
and was impressed to learn that these two phenomena are part of the same continuous spectrum. My initial scientific
interest soon led me to the two parallel artistic roads on which I have travelled all my life - music and photography. Almost
by chance, my musical career became the more prominent one, due to a #1 hit by my first band when I was 18 years old.
After nearly two decades of musical experimenting, from soul to progressive rock, punk rock to meditation music, I moved to
Japan in 1985. Inspired by the apparently contradictory elements of cutting-edge modernism and deep spiritual tradition in
Japanese culture, my creative journey became more focussed, both in visual art and in music. The new digital technology
enabled me to sample sounds, analyse them microscopically and transform them. At the same time, the acquisition of high
quality macro lenses allowed me to approach my subjects (for example, the interior of flowers, rain on garbage bags, rust
on signposts) closer and closer until the forms became as abstract as sound waves.
At a certain point, the echoes, the spaces between the notes started to have more significance than the notes themselves.
It now seemed that the ideal to which I should aspire was to improvise music that would lead myself and the listeners to a
silent state of grace and heightened awareness. Likewise, in the increasing formlessness of my photographs, the pure light
spoke more to me than the objects from which it was reflected. I became inspired by the feeling that life is a divinelyinspired
play to immerse oneself in, rather than an agonising riddle to be solved. The attentiveness to tiny accidents,
chance happenings, invitations to go beyond my plans and concepts, became the key.
One night I tried to take a photograph of Christmas lights, and accidentally moved the camera during the long exposure.
The resulting trails of light looked more like a painting than a photograph. This could have been considered as a mistake,
or at best a charming random occurrence, and left at that. But over
time this has become the only form of photography which deeply
interests me, and I have devised numerous ways to refine this technique
of creating images in the camera. The principal approach is
the movement, during the exposure, of the camera, or the light
source, or both. The light sources may be natural (a full moon,
sunlight reflected on water, or refracted through foliage) or manmade
(city lights, car lights, candles, flashing LED’s). Since I moved
from film to digital technology, the computer has come into play,
but only for cropping or adjusting colour balance.
Regarding titles, I felt that they should not limit people’s personal
interpretation of these light paintings. “Untitled” may be the best
solution, but I find it a little drab - and how to refer to a particular
image? As a homage to the country in which I developed this form
of art, I decided to categorise the images using Japanese words
that somehow relate to the type of light source used. For this presentation,
the two categories are Shindo (meaning vibration, as in
the rapid movement of tungsten filaments) and Tamashii (soul,
referring to the “light being” look of some plasma lamps).
I dedicate these light paintings to all the pioneering abstract photographers
and artists who have inspired me with their visual
music, and to the immortal light that shines within us all.
Morgan Fisher
Morgan's Artworks >>
|
|
|
|
