In the Studio with Aaron Morse: In the lead-up to his ucpoming exhibiton, "Lights Out for the Territories," Los Angeles-based artist Aaron Morse discusses his new work.

The Western genre is fascinating; it’s sort of like our origin myths. Filmmakers started to do revisionist westerns, which we’re starting to look at differently. And, later on, you have postmodern westerns and acid westerns, you know? I think that there’s been a lot of reinterpretation of the genre. I think it still has potential. It’s amazing to me how much people are still interested in it. I’m curious how much I’m still interested in it. It’s because, I think, it’s fun; it’s open ended. It can go a lot of different places.

I have ideas as I’m carrying out the paintings. Afterwards, I’m kind of like everybody else. I start to see things that I didn’t recognize before, and I think that’s because so many things have gone into the stew, so to speak. I didn’t realize it while making the painting until I saw it later. I like that. 

My goal is not to dominate the viewer or demand that they feel or see the view I'm presenting a certain way. The art is living with ambiguity and contradictory assessments. I always try to make paintings that are rich but open — that might have a life of their own.

I like pictures of processions and people moving in one direction or another. I like that trajectory, that sort of force that’s generated by creatures on the move.

My procession of people coming out of the mountains are a motley group of, you know, different types.

We’re in this interesting place where, you know, we can see through the media what’s happening to our earth. There’s so much information coming to us through the internet. But our life and our culture are not the internet. It’s not our humanity. It’s not what we are, especially when it comes to talking to someone like you, who makes things by hand and experience. Despite all of these tools and all the things you’re doing, it’s exploration. You’re surprised, and you don’t know where things are going. Anyway, that’s a lot of different thoughts. I don’t know if it resonates with you, but I just thought I’d say that.