Outback

“I had the pleasure of accompanying Bart on many of his Australian field trips; he produced wonderful paintings, mixed-media works, and drawings, many of which were housed in hand built frames with relief images of brightly colored birds, animals or reptiles. Bart was fascinated by the people he met, and they were enamored with him. His enthusiasm, inquisitiveness, and genuine interest in their lives and stories was boundless.” 
- Charles Young

Morse’s connection with Australia was the result of his daughter Brooke’s marriage to an Australian scientist, Dr. Charles Young in 1987. Morse made personally and professionally rewarding visits to Australia in 1995, 1998, and 2001 traveling extensively across the country visiting New South Wales, South Australia, Tasmania, Queensland, and Victoria. Morse toured many National Parks and remote wilderness areas including the Flinders Ranges, Wilsons Promontory, Cradle Mountain and Mount Field. He drew inspiration from Aboriginal culture and Australia’s unique flora and fauna. 

During his 1995 sabbatical trip, Morse and his son-in-law Charles Young took a road trip across Victoria and South Australia, visiting the Great Ocean Road, Grampians National Park (Gariwerd), Adelaide, Quorn, Wilpena Pound, Sacred Canyon, Broken Hill, and Mildura. These areas were selected because of their stunning landscape and because they are rich in Aboriginal rock art and rock engravings. Sacred Canyon is a small chasm where ancient Aboriginal rock engravings representing animal tracks, people, waterholes, and other symbols have been etched into the smooth sandstone walls. 

Morse’s involvement in the Passport in Time program and study of Ancestral Puebloan rock art provided the foundation for his interest in Aboriginal rock art. He traveled to Carnarvon Gorge, an oasis in the semi-arid region of Queensland, to research the rock art located there. While in Queensland, he met Grahame L. Walsh, author of Australia’s Greatest Rock Art (1988) who was a valuable resource to Morse in selecting local rock art sites to visit.

The culmination of Morse’s Australian trips were large acrylic paintings housed within wide handcrafted wooden frames. Through these, he communicated his experiences, the rock art of the region, and his curiosity about Aboriginal Dreamtime stories.

Reflecting on the sabbatical research in a report to the Dean of the College of Fine Art in 1996, Morse wrote:

‘After hours of study, sketching and photo taking at various rock art sites, I returned to the studio to start the construction process using as media, oils, watercolor, graphite relief and printmaking. For a number of years, I have focused my relief printing research on the integration of multiple images on one plane using combined relief reduction process and painted surface. My interest in prehistoric art and integrating it into my own work demands that I rethink existing traditional methods. I not only explore visually but also with materials, including inks, paper and found objectives, so that I might successfully express that imagery. My alternative methods contribute to progressive ideas in printmaking and seem especially valid when looking for significant insights into the understanding of the past and present human experience.’

The paintings inspired by his Australian travels were acrylic on canvas that incorporated landscape elements, antique fabrics, and metal items such as rings, press studs, and small discs. The paintings were housed in hand-built frames with wooden figures in relief that were made by a jigsaw tool, painted, and affixed to the frames. 

Daughter Magen Morse observed ‘A trip to Australia provided Bart with new landscape and rock art imagery. Painting foliage and animals from a foreign continent seems to give my father a great deal of pleasure. A kangaroo mama hiding her baby in her pouch seems just the kind of thing to stimulate an artist who always wants to know what lies hidden beneath the surface of places of beauty.’