Liz Morton
Liz Morton is a painter whose life and practice are shaped by a belief in creativity as an essential, sustaining force. Raised in the American South in a family of modest means but expansive imagination, she grew up surrounded by making. Sewing, decorating, and transforming everyday spaces were part of daily life. A formative influence was her grandmother, who studied correspondence courses developed by Norman Rockwell and Albert Dorne. By the age of five, Morton was practicing alongside her cousin under her grandmother’s guidance, absorbing both technical instruction and the quiet persistence of unrealized creative dreams.
Naturally introverted, Morton found in drawing and painting a mode of expression more precise than language. Childhood trips to New York City exposed her to galleries, theaters, and museums, experiences that deepened her commitment to art as a lifelong pursuit. These encounters with cultural intensity and experimentation helped solidify creation as a form of personal resistance and inquiry rather than spectacle.
Her education reflects both breadth and discipline. Morton studied at Appalachian State University in Boone and in New York City, later completing a dual major in Printmaking and Illustration at Barton College. She pursued an MFA in painting at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and further explored intuitive painting at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico. Throughout her training, she worked fluidly across media, including sculpture, pottery, photography, and etching, allowing each form to inform an evolving and layered visual language.
To sustain her practice, Morton worked for many years in the technology sector, developing digital skills that supported extensive international travel. These journeys became integral to her worldview, exposing her to diverse cultures and artistic traditions that continue to influence her work. After two decades immersed in the Washington, DC art scene, she returned to the North Carolina coast, where she balances studio practice with caring for her autistic great-nephew and contributing to her local arts community. She also leads a monthly critique group, fostering dialogue, experimentation, and shared growth among artists.
Morton’s paintings are characterized by vibrant, tactile surfaces and a sense of rhythmic movement. Her abstract forms are organic and expressive, shaped by fluid lines and layered color that shift between calm and urgency. Cool blues and teals intertwine with bursts of red, pink, and yellow, creating harmonies that evoke elemental forces such as water, mist, and growth without literal depiction. Her work prioritizes emotional resonance over narrative, inviting viewers into a contemplative space.
One of her most ambitious bodies of work, the Enchantment Series, consists of large-scale paintings inspired by coral reef formations. These immersive works collapse distance between viewer and surface through texture and color, emphasizing sensation and presence. While artists such as Georgia O’Keeffe, Frida Kahlo, Helen Frankenthaler, Lee Krasner, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Cy Twombly have influenced her, Morton transforms these references into a distinctly personal and contemporary voice.
Beyond the studio, Morton maintains an active exhibition and organizational presence. She is represented by Carolina Artist Gallery and has shown work at Impressions Art Gallery & Studio and Falls Church Art Gallery. She is a member of the International Society of Experimental Artists, Women’s Caucus for Art, the Society of Layerists in Multi-Media, the Wilmington Artist Association, and the Arts Council of Carteret County. Her exhibition history includes six solo exhibitions, ten group shows, and participation in more than one hundred juried competitions, earning multiple awards.
Morton’s work is often described as carrying a quiet, transformative power, suggesting emotional and psychological states rather than fixed narratives. Through layered abstraction and sustained commitment, her practice asserts creativity as an act of renewal, resilience, and connection, inviting viewers to engage not only with the work itself, but with their own inner capacities for reflection and endurance.
