Artist Statement

My first efforts at drawing, more than 30 years ago, were spurred in part by my lingering anger at, and desire to prove wrong, a fifth grade art teacher who had told me and my mother that I just didn't have any aptitude for art. Teachers were never wrong in those days, but maybe in this case she was a little bit weak on being right. Just before college, I picked up Betty Edwards' wonderful book "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain." It helped me get beyond that teacher's pronouncement and see and draw in a whole new way I had never experienced.  This taste of artistic competence inspired me to delve deeper into creating fine art and to understand the meaning of the world's artistic history.  Seeing and creating like an artist comes more naturally to some than others, but it's learnable.

I do not strive to duplicate the visual experience of the world.  My work aims to split some little corner of the  universe open and create an interaction with the divine fabric of reality, to provide a view from edge of the unknown, internal or external. "Look, there on the horizon is beauty,"  or "beneath this surface there be dragons."    This may be as simple as subjective beauty or a translation of some insight into an abstract expression that forges  novel connections with a reality.  

The truth of a painting can begin with one true line or color.  This truth is subservient to no ruling ideology, nor is it automatically in opposition to all aspects of the status quo.  Disruption for disruption's sake is destruction.   I strive to forge connections, celebrate, and participate in creation; to split the universe open and find meaning.

Background

Eric Ryder Morgan is a native of Boulder Colorado. He is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Thailand 1989-1991). His other international adventures have included time in Laos, Cambodia, China, India, Bolivia, Sweden, England, Spain and Mexico. Eric is a graduate of the University of Colorado where he pursued studies in English, Fine Art, Art History and Law (B.A. 1988 and J.D. 1997) .   From 1999-2010 he was the Principal of E.R. Morgan & Associates, a government affairs consulting firm.   From 2011-2021 He served as President of Attorneys Title Guaranty Fund, a title insurer.  Today, he is a professional artist and personal executive coach.   He currently resides in Golden Colorado with his wife, two boys, a dog, and two hermit crabs.