LOS ANGELES, CA.- Shatto Gallery will present While I’m Away, an exhibition of new works by multi-disciplinary artist, Rocky Morton. Known primarily for his work in filmmaking, Morton makes a striking return to his roots in painting, exploring the depths of human experience through his unique artistic lens.

Drawing from his deep fascination with science and the essence of humanity, Morton’s latest works stand apart, in their inspiration and innovative creation process. Employing a fresh approach, Morton uses a leaf blower to propel strings of paint—mixed with a unique elastic ingredient—across the canvas. This technique results in delicate, thread-like patterns, reminiscent of mycelium, the fungal networks that connect all living plants and trees, bringing a touch of nature’s unpredictability into his art.



“Morton finds beauty in division – his colored paintings thrill with outpourings of intense hues, all assigned to their own regions yet struggling to oppose and at the same time embrace, even merge with, one another” - says Peter Frank, art critic and curator.

At the heart of While I’m Away is the theme of universal connection. Morton’s paintings seek to transcend the familiar, venturing into uncharted territory, where the tangible world meets the infinite. Some pieces present literal interpretations, horizons where existence seems to emerge from nothingness, while others evoke the complex interconnectedness of the universe, akin to the synapses in the brain or fields of energy reminiscent of string theory.



While I’m Away will be on display at Shatto Gallery from November 2 to December 7, offering art enthusiasts a rare opportunity to experience Morton’s visionary work firsthand. The work will be amplified by a natural soundscape.

Rocky Morton (1955) is an English-born, American-based artist known for his work as a painter and filmmaker. His pieces are part of the permanent collections at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. He attended Southampton School of Art in the 1970s and transferred to West Surrey College of Art and Design, where he studied animation. He has been awarded the Palme d'Or at Cannes over nine times, and earned accolades such as Cannes Lions, British D&AD, Clios, a One Show award, a BAFTA, an Emmy, and three Directors Guild of America (DGA) nominations for best Director.



Shatto Gallery is a contemporary art gallery in the heart of central Los Angeles dedicated to promoting exhibitions of diverse practices and cultures. From established to emerging artists, Shatto Gallery has developed a national and international roster through year-round programmed exhibitions, projects, workshops, and talks in a 4,500 square foot space since 2019.

Q&A with Rocky Morton



Tell me about your beginnings as an artist.

I was born and I guess, raised, if you want to call it that, in Winchester, England. I came from a working-class English background. From an early age, I had a passion for drawing and painting.

When I was about to leave school, I wasn’t aware that art schools even existed. No one at my school had mentioned this to me. My careers teacher, who I met for about five minutes, suggested that I could either join the army or work in the local factory. I realized this wasn’t the path I wanted to take, so I went to the library and researched further education. There, I discovered a slim pamphlet on art schools in Britain.

I expressed my desire to attend art school to my art teacher, but he informed me that I needed more qualifications. In England, we have O-levels, and I didn’t have enough of them to qualify for art school. Therefore, I spent a year obtaining the necessary O-levels. During this time, my art teacher advised me to work on my portfolio, which I did.

I applied to several colleges and was accepted into the Southampton School of Art, which is conveniently located near Winchester. The train ride was only about fifteen minutes, so due to financial constraints, I continued living at home and commuted daily to Southampton, where I completed my foundation course in art. I did painting, sculpture, graphic design, some ceramics, photography and printing. I really enjoyed it. It was sort of like across the board, an interdisciplinary kind of deal.

I really wanted to be a painter, but, in that period of time in the early 70s, I can remember reading a headline in the newspaper saying, “Painting is Dead.” Things in the art world had become “conceptual,” you know, but it was painting that I really wanted to do! It seemed like the forces were against me. So anyway, I applied to several colleges. And one college that I applied to was West Surrey College of Art and Design, which is south of London. They had an animation course. And because I could draw and I was interested in film and photography, they suggested that I should, well, try animation. My first reaction was, I’m not interested in Disney and cartoon characters and all that. But then, they showed me some experimental animation films like the work of Len Lye who was drawing on film, James Whitney’s early computer animation, Frank Mouris’ cutout animation and other sorts of creative animation. I’d never seen anything like that before, so I said I’ll give it a try.

I fell in love with the process of animation. It combined my passion for drawing and painting with the exciting possibility of bringing those creations to life through film. I became deeply fascinated with the entire process and quickly got hooked on animation.



Would you say that Los Angeles influences you in your creative process?

I live in Venice and I don’t think my painting is influenced by my environment really. My paintings are influenced by more of my fascination with science and the development of our understanding of what it is to be a human being. And that’s where my painting comes from and it comes from meditation really, which is touching on a kind of oneness of the universe. You know, it’s very hard to describe.

I returned to painting after a long time as a filmmaker, though I had always been engaged in drawing and painting. But what was my true purpose in communicating through art? Well, I meditate a lot and in that state with this feeling of being deeply connected to the universe, I realized that my work should express the internal human experience rather than external realities.

Let’s get back to the internal aspects of the meaning of your paintings. Can you tell me what Vedic meditation is?

Vedic meditation is an ancient Indian practice, predating even the Buddha. It involves the effortless repetition of a mantra, leading to a deeper, unbounded level of consciousness—the consciousness of the universe itself.

Our relative world is beautiful and fascinating but it’s just a construct of our minds. Meditation offers a blissful way to transcend this constructed reality and connect with the cosmic oneness of the universe. This intersection, where the relative world meets the unbounded is where thoughts originate. It’s a profoundly interesting place and serves as the inspiration for my work.

My paintings are an attempt to capture the essence of being in that space—connected to everything. Some works are more literal, depicting horizons where existence emerges from nothingness. Others convey the interconnectedness of the universe like synapses in the brain or fields of energy, kind of reminiscent of string theory. This concept of universal connection is central to my art.



What’s the process for you to get into that state to then start making work?

I come into my studio and I meditate for probably about 20 minutes and then after I’ve meditated, I just allow things to happen. And this is the difficult bit, it’s trying not to let my egoic mind tell me what to do. I try to keep in that meditative state, so basically nature is guiding me, and strange things start to happen. And that’s when I abandon figurative or representational work for this abstract work and it’s an expression of bliss. I don’t know how else to describe it really. It’s an expression of what it’s like to be a thought. Then sometimes the mind starts to come in and say: hang on a minute, what about if you put a bit of orange in there, oh don’t you think you should do that, do a bit more of this. Once that all starts happening, I stop, and I’ll have a cup of tea.

Tell me what automatism means to you?

Automatism refers to creating art automatically, without conscious control, removing the human ego from the process. Lots of painters embraced this, such as Joan Miró, who was a Surrealist. Automatism came out of Surrealism, Max Ernst, André Masson, Jean Arp, etc. Picasso famously said, “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child” - capturing the uninhibited creativity of youth. As children, we get lost in painting, fully connected to nature, without our thinking brains interfering. However, education often pushes us to abandon this spontaneity for structured formulas. Yet true success comes from letting go of control and embracing the automatic flow of creativity. By doing less, we connect more deeply with the essence of creation, leading to really interesting outcomes.



What does the title of your show mean “While I’m away?”

The title “While I’m Away” means to express what I’ve been saying. It signifies my attempt to transcend the relative world and abandon familiar formulas, engaging solely with the paint and the process. Sometimes I mix my paint with a unique, elastic ingredient, creating thin strings reminiscent of mycelium, like that fungal network connecting all plants and trees. Using an electric leaf blower, I propel these strings across the room, allowing nature to influence the outcome. I’m sort of in control of what’s happening, but it has a life of its own really.

This show is the tentative beginnings of something greater and I don’t know what that other greater thing is yet, but I feel as though it’s a stepping stone, a small step towards something and I just feel it inside me and sometimes I get really excited over a painting and I say, oh my god, this is getting close to what I’m trying to express. It happens for a moment and then I look back at it and I think, no, I’ve got to go further, I’ve got to go further.

How do you know when your paintings are finished?

How do you know when your painting is finished? That question has been given to artists since time began. I don’t think there’s an answer to that question. I don’t think any artist could ever have the answer to that question. I know that Turner...I’m a big fan of Turner’s paintings because, in a sense, he was the first abstract painter. He was painting sunsets and views across London and the Thames, but they just became abstract. And the more abstract they became, the more they communicated, strangely. And about Turner and whether his paintings were finished, I know the stories of Turner going into the galleries after the paintings had been up for months and he’s in there with his paints. Painting, still painting his paintings in the gallery! I think that every artist feels that way. I don’t think there are many artists that think that's it. We’re done.



In terms of the actual paint, like the materiality of it, how did you get to this place?

Technically, how did I get to this point? I was painting these abstract paintings by splashing the paint onto the canvas on the floor. As I was painting these paintings, I felt the need for the paint to be more elastic. I wanted it to be more expressive. It was like there was something in me saying, it’s got to be more elastic. It’s got to be more string-like. I knew about this substance that I used in the film industry that was actually used in the film Alien.You know the alien monster, the teeth, and the goo between the teeth, like its dribbles, those long stringy things. Next, I tried mixing my paint with that, so I’d have a long string of colorful paint, it just worked beautifully. The interaction of the canvas, the air between me and the canvas, the pigment and the elasticity of that pigment all together and me semi-controlling it with a leaf blower creates the painting. And it has the feeling, it definitely has the feeling of when I’m meditating. It’s a visual interpretation of that feeling.

Can you explain the feeling that you have in meditation that you’re trying to put on the canvas?

So, when you meditate, you still the mind and let go of your egoic thoughts, entering a different state of consciousness. In this state, you feel a profound connection to everything, experiencing emptiness from which all thoughts arise. This unboundedness allows consciousness to express itself, creating pure moments of thought. Athletes talk about it, about being in the zone. Very similar. Musicians talk about it. When they’ve completed a song, they sometimes say, I don’t know where that music came from, it just came, I was at one with it. This state, often described as a mysterious source of inspiration, is where I aim to be when I create my work. It’s an abstract expression of something beyond our usual perceptions, more intriguing to me than painting things. And that’s where I am.