Shaun Morris sees himself as a painter of landscapes, although he strives desperately to avoid all the connotations and associations that the tradition of landscape painting may conjure up. He doesn’t paint the seemingly picturesque; the bucolic countryside or the dramatic coast as, from his home in the urban sprawl of Birmingham and its surrounding areas, he doesn’t live anywhere near these places. He paints the Sainsbury’s car-park, the local bus stop or the disused telephone box. He may paint nature, but it’s the nature of the common edgelands and woods, or the canals or beneath the motorways, and nature at the feet of the pylons that loom on the edge of the housing estates and the ruins and edges of the post-industrial landscape where he grew up. The paintings are often set at night, inspired by the artist’s frequent night walks. Shortlisted for the Jerwood Drawing Prize, he has exhibited widely including the Surface Gallery, Nottingham; The Atkinson Gallery in Somerset; Nuneaton Museum and Art Gallery; Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham and the Asylum Gallery in Wolverhampton. Shaun has an MA in Fine Art, Painting, from Norwich School of Art and Design (1995), and has work in private and public collections in the UK and overseas. Shaun was recently seen as a contestant on Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year.