Rebecca Morris

Rebecca Morris (born 1969 in Honolulu, Hawaii) is a contemporary American visual artist whose practice is known by its exploration of and rigorous commitment to abstract painting. Over the course of her thirty plus-year career, Morris has developed and returned to recurring motifs such as fragmented patterns and distorted grids to complicate her work against the larger history of artists that have used precise geometry to delineate visual space or convey specific philosophical concepts, such as Suprematism. While her work has been variously associated with the schools of Pattern and Decoration and Supports/Surfaces, Morris refuses the confinement of her practice to any one category or movement.

In 2004, Morris notably published her Manifesto (For Abstractionists and Friends of the Non-Objective) in Artforum in response to criticisms of abstraction.

Morris lives and works in Los Angeles and is currently Professor of Painting and Drawing and Acting Chair of the Department of Art at the University of California, Los Angeles. She was previously Professor of Painting and Drawing at Pasadena City College from 2000–2019. She has lectured at universities including Columbia University, Yale University, Bard College, the University of Southern California’s School of Fine Arts, the University of Chicago, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she served as a Distinguished Alumni Lecturer. She has also lectured at arts institutions including the Hammer Museum, Baffler Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, ICALA, and Anderson Ranch, among others.