Scott Morgan

Ten Thousand Years

“Assuming all forms, golden hued, all knowing,

the final refuge, the one light, the giver of heat

so rises, the Sun, the thousand-rayed, existing in

a hundred ways, the breath of living beings.”

The Upanishads

The light rays of the Sun are created in the burning heart of the planet through a lengthy process of fusion. From birth in the center of the Sun, a photon, the active form of light, takes a minimum of 10,000 years to reach the surface of the earth from which the title of the project is derived.

The 10,000-year project focuses this potent sunlight on drawing, burning, and etching into the surface of black and white silver gelatin prints, transforming them into unique, one of a kind artworks. This alchemical process takes the Sun's intense light and light-sensitive materials to create a new expression made of paper, metallic silver, gelatin, and ash. Inspired by an analog technique, discussed initially in Leonardo Da Vinci's notebooks from 1475, the final pieces, called "Suryagrams," named after the Vedic god of the Sun, are at once ancient in texture and modern in expression. 

Raw, elemental, and deeply spiritual, the works are divided into various diverse bodies of work under the overall exploratory analog framework of 10,000 years; all are focused on the solar legacy and the unique process of creating. They are made utilizing both modern and vintage papers, along with the analog, unpredictable light of the Sun, and chemical interventions, to create a new form of imagery. Through this process, the actual silver halides of the photographic emulsions rise to the surface to chemically form actual metallic silver which is quite visible on the surfaces of the pieces. This silver combines with the ash and chemicals within the paper to also create gold, deep oxblood, yellow, blue, and orange lines and marks within the pieces as well.

In all groups other than the Prayer Cycle, the titles of individual pieces contain the actual time, date, and unique angle of the Sun at the moment of creation of the works based on the exact longitude and latitude of the place of creation.

Ten Thousand Years

“Assuming all forms, golden hued, all knowing,

the final refuge, the one light, the giver of heat

so rises, the Sun, the thousand-rayed, existing in

a hundred ways, the breath of living beings.”

The Upanishads

The light rays of the Sun are created in the burning heart of the planet through a lengthy process of fusion. From birth in the center of the Sun, a photon, the active form of light, takes a minimum of 10,000 years to reach the surface of the earth from which the title of the project is derived.

The 10,000-year project focuses this potent sunlight on drawing, burning, and etching into the surface of black and white silver gelatin prints, transforming them into unique, one of a kind artworks. This alchemical process takes the Sun's intense light and light-sensitive materials to create a new expression made of paper, metallic silver, gelatin, and ash. Inspired by an analog technique, discussed initially in Leonardo Da Vinci's notebooks from 1475, the final pieces, called "Suryagrams," named after the Vedic god of the Sun, are at once ancient in texture and modern in expression. 

Raw, elemental, and deeply spiritual, the works are divided into various diverse bodies of work under the overall exploratory analog framework of 10,000 years; all are focused on the solar legacy and the unique process of creating. They are made utilizing both modern and vintage papers, along with the analog, unpredictable light of the Sun, and chemical interventions, to create a new form of imagery. Through this process, the actual silver halides of the photographic emulsions rise to the surface to chemically form actual metallic silver which is quite visible on the surfaces of the pieces. This silver combines with the ash and chemicals within the paper to also create gold, deep oxblood, yellow, blue, and orange lines and marks within the pieces as well.

In all groups other than the Prayer Cycle, the titles of individual pieces contain the actual time, date, and unique angle of the Sun at the moment of creation of the works based on the exact longitude and latitude of the place of creation.

The Prayer Cycle is a group of small, intimate, jewel-like pieces with a repeating modernist horizon orientation. These pieces were created as a response and acknowledgment of the worldwide pandemic.

These works respond in a small way to all the prayers, repeatedly recited, in all cultures and traditions, continuously circling the globe during this unprecedented time.

Each unique artwork, like a prayer, has pure silver, gold, and iridescent blue lines created by the materials' chemical and heat interaction, intensity of the sun, humidity, and wind.

Ten Thousand Years

“Assuming all forms, golden hued, all knowing,

the final refuge, the one light, the giver of heat

so rises, the Sun, the thousand-rayed, existing in

a hundred ways, the breath of living beings.”

The Upanishads

The light rays of the Sun are created in the burning heart of the planet through a lengthy process of fusion. From birth in the center of the Sun, a photon, the active form of light, takes a minimum of 10,000 years to reach the surface of the earth from which the title of the project is derived.

The 10,000-year project focuses this potent sunlight on drawing, burning, and etching into the surface of black and white silver gelatin prints, transforming them into unique, one of a kind artworks. This alchemical process takes the Sun's intense light and light-sensitive materials to create a new expression made of paper, metallic silver, gelatin, and ash. Inspired by an analog technique, discussed initially in Leonardo Da Vinci's notebooks from 1475, the final pieces, called "Suryagrams," named after the Vedic god of the Sun, are at once ancient in texture and modern in expression. 

Raw, elemental, and deeply spiritual, the works are divided into various diverse bodies of work under the overall exploratory analog framework of 10,000 years; all are focused on the solar legacy and the unique process of creating. They are made utilizing both modern and vintage papers, along with the analog, unpredictable light of the Sun, and chemical interventions, to create a new form of imagery. Through this process, the actual silver halides of the photographic emulsions rise to the surface to chemically form actual metallic silver which is quite visible on the surfaces of the pieces. This silver combines with the ash and chemicals within the paper to also create gold, deep oxblood, yellow, blue, and orange lines and marks within the pieces as well.

In all groups other than the Prayer Cycle, the titles of individual pieces contain the actual time, date, and unique angle of the Sun at the moment of creation of the works based on the exact longitude and latitude of the place of creation.

Ten Thousand Years

“Assuming all forms, golden hued, all knowing,

the final refuge, the one light, the giver of heat

so rises, the Sun, the thousand-rayed, existing in

a hundred ways, the breath of living beings.”

The Upanishads

The light rays of the Sun are created in the burning heart of the planet through a lengthy process of fusion. From birth in the center of the Sun, a photon, the active form of light, takes a minimum of 10,000 years to reach the surface of the earth from which the title of the project is derived.

The 10,000-year project focuses this potent sunlight on drawing, burning, and etching into the surface of black and white silver gelatin prints, transforming them into unique, one of a kind artworks. This alchemical process takes the Sun's intense light and light-sensitive materials to create a new expression made of paper, metallic silver, gelatin, and ash. Inspired by an analog technique, discussed initially in Leonardo Da Vinci's notebooks from 1475, the final pieces, called "Suryagrams," named after the Vedic god of the Sun, are at once ancient in texture and modern in expression. 

Raw, elemental, and deeply spiritual, the works are divided into various diverse bodies of work under the overall exploratory analog framework of 10,000 years; all are focused on the solar legacy and the unique process of creating. They are made utilizing both modern and vintage papers, along with the analog, unpredictable light of the Sun, and chemical interventions, to create a new form of imagery. Through this process, the actual silver halides of the photographic emulsions rise to the surface to chemically form actual metallic silver which is quite visible on the surfaces of the pieces. This silver combines with the ash and chemicals within the paper to also create gold, deep oxblood, yellow, blue, and orange lines and marks within the pieces as well.

In all groups other than the Prayer Cycle, the titles of individual pieces contain the actual time, date, and unique angle of the Sun at the moment of creation of the works based on the exact longitude and latitude of the place of creation.

Ten Thousand Years

“Assuming all forms, golden hued, all knowing,

the final refuge, the one light, the giver of heat

so rises, the Sun, the thousand-rayed, existing in

a hundred ways, the breath of living beings.”

The Upanishads

The light rays of the Sun are created in the burning heart of the planet through a lengthy process of fusion. From birth in the center of the Sun, a photon, the active form of light, takes a minimum of 10,000 years to reach the surface of the earth from which the title of the project is derived.

The 10,000-year project focuses this potent sunlight on drawing, burning, and etching into the surface of black and white silver gelatin prints, transforming them into unique, one of a kind artworks. This alchemical process takes the Sun's intense light and light-sensitive materials to create a new expression made of paper, metallic silver, gelatin, and ash. Inspired by an analog technique, discussed initially in Leonardo Da Vinci's notebooks from 1475, the final pieces, called "Suryagrams," named after the Vedic god of the Sun, are at once ancient in texture and modern in expression. 

Raw, elemental, and deeply spiritual, the works are divided into various diverse bodies of work under the overall exploratory analog framework of 10,000 years; all are focused on the solar legacy and the unique process of creating. They are made utilizing both modern and vintage papers, along with the analog, unpredictable light of the Sun, and chemical interventions, to create a new form of imagery. Through this process, the actual silver halides of the photographic emulsions rise to the surface to chemically form actual metallic silver which is quite visible on the surfaces of the pieces. This silver combines with the ash and chemicals within the paper to also create gold, deep oxblood, yellow, blue, and orange lines and marks within the pieces as well.

In all groups other than the Prayer Cycle, the titles of individual pieces contain the actual time, date, and unique angle of the Sun at the moment of creation of the works based on the exact longitude and latitude of the place of creation.

Ten Thousand Years

“Assuming all forms, golden hued, all knowing,

the final refuge, the one light, the giver of heat

so rises, the Sun, the thousand-rayed, existing in

a hundred ways, the breath of living beings.”

The Upanishads

The light rays of the Sun are created in the burning heart of the planet through a lengthy process of fusion. From birth in the center of the Sun, a photon, the active form of light, takes a minimum of 10,000 years to reach the surface of the earth from which the title of the project is derived.

The 10,000-year project focuses this potent sunlight on drawing, burning, and etching into the surface of black and white silver gelatin prints, transforming them into unique, one of a kind artworks. This alchemical process takes the Sun's intense light and light-sensitive materials to create a new expression made of paper, metallic silver, gelatin, and ash. Inspired by an analog technique, discussed initially in Leonardo Da Vinci's notebooks from 1475, the final pieces, called "Suryagrams," named after the Vedic god of the Sun, are at once ancient in texture and modern in expression. 

Raw, elemental, and deeply spiritual, the works are divided into various diverse bodies of work under the overall exploratory analog framework of 10,000 years; all are focused on the solar legacy and the unique process of creating. They are made utilizing both modern and vintage papers, along with the analog, unpredictable light of the Sun, and chemical interventions, to create a new form of imagery. Through this process, the actual silver halides of the photographic emulsions rise to the surface to chemically form actual metallic silver which is quite visible on the surfaces of the pieces. This silver combines with the ash and chemicals within the paper to also create gold, deep oxblood, yellow, blue, and orange lines and marks within the pieces as well.

In all groups other than the Prayer Cycle, the titles of individual pieces contain the actual time, date, and unique angle of the Sun at the moment of creation of the works based on the exact longitude and latitude of the place of creation.

Ten Thousand Years

“Assuming all forms, golden hued, all knowing,

the final refuge, the one light, the giver of heat

so rises, the Sun, the thousand-rayed, existing in

a hundred ways, the breath of living beings.”

The Upanishads

The light rays of the Sun are created in the burning heart of the planet through a lengthy process of fusion. From birth in the center of the Sun, a photon, the active form of light, takes a minimum of 10,000 years to reach the surface of the earth from which the title of the project is derived.

The 10,000-year project focuses this potent sunlight on drawing, burning, and etching into the surface of black and white silver gelatin prints, transforming them into unique, one of a kind artworks. This alchemical process takes the Sun's intense light and light-sensitive materials to create a new expression made of paper, metallic silver, gelatin, and ash. Inspired by an analog technique, discussed initially in Leonardo Da Vinci's notebooks from 1475, the final pieces, called "Suryagrams," named after the Vedic god of the Sun, are at once ancient in texture and modern in expression. 

Raw, elemental, and deeply spiritual, the works are divided into various diverse bodies of work under the overall exploratory analog framework of 10,000 years; all are focused on the solar legacy and the unique process of creating. They are made utilizing both modern and vintage papers, along with the analog, unpredictable light of the Sun, and chemical interventions, to create a new form of imagery. Through this process, the actual silver halides of the photographic emulsions rise to the surface to chemically form actual metallic silver which is quite visible on the surfaces of the pieces. This silver combines with the ash and chemicals within the paper to also create gold, deep oxblood, yellow, blue, and orange lines and marks within the pieces as well.

In all groups other than the Prayer Cycle, the titles of individual pieces contain the actual time, date, and unique angle of the Sun at the moment of creation of the works based on the exact longitude and latitude of the place of creation.

Cathedral is a series of documented interventions in the natural world that explore the junction point between what is precious, what is ordinary and what is considered sacred in our modern human life.  Using the tools of the craftsmen of the renaissance; gold leaf, silver leaf, semi precious stones in new and unexpected ways, Cathedral opens up a dialog on these reference points of value and beauty.

A large boulder sitting on the threshold of the sea is hand covered in  milk and sugar, then gold leaf, and then photographed.  This ordinary boulder, sitting among many for millions of years, now with this small act is declared, rare, unique and somehow holy for the short period of time, usually less than a day, that it exists in this exalted state. A stand of Aspen trees, in a forgotten meadow high in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of New Mexico, is transformed from unnoticed random trees to an altarpiece. A stretch of wind swept rock or fallen tree trunk is covered in diamond like crystals. The crack of a volcanic rock in the Sonoran desert glows from within. They sit as they are found. Nothing special. Nothing moved or arranged.

These acts bring up classic questions; Can something exist without being perceived? If a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound? If no one is around to see, hear, touch or smell the tree, how could it be said to exist?  What creates a sacred place?

Siren is a six channel video piece consisting of three monitors on each wall facing each other. On each monitor a film consisting of shots of an indigenous singer from a country on the edge of one of the great oceans continuously loops. Their faces fill the frame of their respective monitors. Each subject is singing a traditional song to the sea, a song of longing, of love, of loss, in a native language. On the opposite wall a singer from the opposite side of that ocean is singing. 

A young man from Okinawa, on the Pacific, sings in Japanese across the room to a woman standing on the shore of the Pacific in California singing in Spanish.  A middle aged man standing on the edge of the North Atlantic in Nova Scotia sings in Gaelic across the room to a middle aged African man singing in his native tongue.
The film cuts away to show the singers as small figures on the shore of the vast sea and then cuts back to a close up of their faces. 

Upon entering the room the viewer hears the voices of the people on the monitors as a low murmur, but is surrounded by the sound of the sea. Only by approaching the monitors, coming into the intimate space of each singer, can the viewer hear the song of each individual.

For the love of explores the individual and collective, the microscopic and the galatic using the base consituent of life.

For the love of is composed of fifty twenty-four inch square archive color prints, mounted on plexiglas and arranged in a tight grid ten feet high by twenty feet in length.   Each panel is an image of 10 ml of blood taken from one of fifty individuals, photographed in such a way to reveal the deep, multilayered transparency of the blood. Ten Buddhists, ten Christians, ten Muslims, ten Jews, and ten Hindus were selected for this work; mothers, daughters, fathers, sons, sisters, and brothers - a cross section of biology, ethnicity and human dynamics. The panels are randomly installed with no regard for group or relationships. The actual identity of each individual remains unknown.

Each photograph captures something highly personal and authentic; a unique glimpse of the literal river of life. Once each panel is positioned side by side, in its entirety, these individuals become a part of one powerful whole with no distinctions.  Blood is one of the most basic human elements, one that is shared by all people, no matter their race, sex, religion or culture.  Taking 50 different blood samples and displaying them together as one whole deconstructs the concept of individuality by blurring the difference between the personal and the universal. That which is shed in times of violence and war is also that which binds and gives life.  This installation deals with both life and death, as blood is at the immediate core of both. The beauty and richness of the color, on one hand invoke the rich drapery of altarpieces from the Italian renaissance or suggests the surfaces of planets, and on the other, the very potent corporeal presence of the most basic component of human life.

"The Shiva portfolio series can be thought of as meditations on the dance of light. In these photographs, light is pure, architectural, geometric, elegant, and most of all, alive.

As sight has always been connected to the metaphysical – i.e. seeing into the soul, and light from the beginning has been assumed by humans to emanate from a divine sphere, these photographs evoke similar.0000 spiritual realms.  Like the bright light that the dying claim to see at the far end of their tunnel vision, these images are characterized by a magical quality that is at once calming and pulsating, like a cosmic force that is beyond control yet also contained by simple forms.  

Perfectly balanced against a darkened background, the gyrating light of the Shiva images conduct like anxious energy columns, swirling like a dervish and caught by the camera in mid-transformation."

A.D Coleman, 1998

The Pilgrim Suite is a series of photographs documenting the artist at the literal landfall edge of the four great oceans; the Arctic, the Pacific, the Atlantic and the Indian. The project is a poetic and literal document of the artist's journey to the ends of the earth, to stand at the edge of the world. The artist is a small central figure in a vast intersection of land and sea. The pieces were conceived as triptychs with the individual panels not matching exactly creating a sense of the passage of time, increasing the isolation and silence at the center of each work. 

The Last Full Moon is on going series exploring the relationship of landscape, light and the corporal form.

In these works the artist takes the vastness of earth and the radiance of moon light and translates those through the use of his body into a new form.  Forgoing the stability of a tripod, he cradles the camera in his hands for long exposures, with the shutter wide open, thus allowing his breathing, flow of blood and muscle contractions to draw the landscape in light.

While You were Sleeping is a series of color images of the planets in our solar system that deal with the crosscurrent realities of modern existence and art practice. These images were found on the internet and exist on one hand in that perpetual world of activity, the endless river of digital noise and connection that never sleeps. And at the same time they are actual celestial bodies, massive spheres of fire, rock and ash, floating in a inconcievably vast, silent blackness; timeless, outside of all the moment to moment rush and whir of human life.

The light of the stars; ancient, fleeting, gone before you see it, the artifacts of time itself. These Ancient Bones is a series of photographs that were created without the translation of camera or lens. The subject is light.  Actually, light of the stars. These pieces were created using just film, exposed on a moonless night, in a remote part of the globe, far from the light of civilization. The film captures the subtle, yet all pervasive light of the stars at different time intervals, creating a range of color, luminosity and emotional response.

Gates of Heaven

The Gates of Heaven series is a silver and pigment based print project that explores the Buddhist concept of Bardos, or windows of transformation. They are both silent, and dynamic, sitting in the deep tradition of spiritual abstraction  and interior landscapes.

The basic premise of the project was simple: Photograph the exact same image; same spot, same angle, same camera, same lens, same proportion of water and sky, for one hundred days. Positioned on a hilltop 800 ft. above the water, facing due south, without the familiar sunrise or sunset poetry of east and west, create a series of images that record the elegant yet minimal transformation of the threshold between two worlds, sea and sky, and the focused ritual of doing it one hundred times.

The images purposely contain no reference points. The elevated vantage point removes the waves and sand leaving the surface of the sea, which could be any large body of water. This strips the images of the specifics of place and sets them free to engage the viewer on many levels both real and imagined.

The Apostles are a series of black white portraits of the moons of various planetary bodies. These are the silent witnesses, orbiting in relative obscurity around the solar system, reflecting the light of the sun and their respective planets. Based in both the traditions of western landscape and intimate portrait, The Apostles blurs the lines between the two, producing at once a series of small precious objects, a landscape collection of huge rock and ice masses hurdling through vast space and, portraits of the unique personalities of these artifacts from the birth of the universe.

Ten Thousand Years

“Assuming all forms, golden hued, all knowing,

the final refuge, the one light, the giver of heat

so rises, the Sun, the thousand-rayed, existing in

a hundred ways, the breath of living beings.”

The Upanishads

The light rays of the Sun are created in the burning heart of the planet through a lengthy process of fusion. From birth in the center of the Sun, a photon, the active form of light, takes a minimum of 10,000 years to reach the surface of the earth from which the title of the project is derived.

The 10,000-year project focuses this potent sunlight on drawing, burning, and etching into the surface of black and white silver gelatin prints, transforming them into unique, one of a kind artworks. This alchemical process takes the Sun's intense light and light-sensitive materials to create a new expression made of paper, metallic silver, gelatin, and ash. Inspired by an analog technique, discussed initially in Leonardo Da Vinci's notebooks from 1475, the final pieces, called "Suryagrams," named after the Vedic god of the Sun, are at once ancient in texture and modern in expression. 

Raw, elemental, and deeply spiritual, the works are divided into various diverse bodies of work under the overall exploratory analog framework of 10,000 years; all are focused on the solar legacy and the unique process of creating. They are made utilizing both modern and vintage papers, along with the analog, unpredictable light of the Sun, and chemical interventions, to create a new form of imagery. Through this process, the actual silver halides of the photographic emulsions rise to the surface to chemically form actual metallic silver which is quite visible on the surfaces of the pieces. This silver combines with the ash and chemicals within the paper to also create gold, deep oxblood, yellow, blue, and orange lines and marks within the pieces as well.

The Earth Sutras are literally a series of drawings executed with light and the subtle gravitational pull of the earth.  Line, density, luminosity, all determined by certain imposed artistic boundaries, are combined with this fundamental force of nature to produce works that are both iconic and bold yet subtle and transcendent.  These pieces are intended to be viewed, both as individual works and grouped in as a possible language or modern hieroglyphics whose meaning is just below the surface of the conscious mind.

Sutra in Sanskrit is derived from the verb √siv, meaning to sew. It literally means a rope or thread, and more metaphorically refers to an aphorism or line, rule, or formula. Through reciting or visualization this formula is believed to create a transformation within the mind, body or environment.  This form is used throughout ancient Buddhist and Vedic texts,