Devin N. Morris is a mixed-media artist featured in P.P.O.W.’s group exhibition Pilot Light. Born in 1986 in Baltimore, Maryland, he is now based in Harlem, New York. His practice is incredibly engaging, incorporating “periods of walking, thinking, attracting and picking” into the creation of his expanded paintings. His lifestyle and artistic process are deeply intertwined, and his work never loses sight of the real world. The found objects within his paintings feel loved, remembered and carefully considered. Morris works with portraits of people who bring him stillness, and his practice centres on peaceful world-building. It explores joy, care work and innocence. His work feels less like the product of a conventional artistic practice than an expression of living and making, largely because it is so deeply connected to his way of life.
Morris’ practice deconstructs ideas of care work, often representing play through passive characters. In part, this reflects the absence of rigid gender hierarchies that he experienced with his grandparents, who helped raise him in Maryland. This is evident in Rest Assured, Not Asunder (2025), where rest itself becomes the subject in a painting that presents non-performative protagonists. Hidden figures can be found in the bottom-left quadrant alongside Little Trees air fresheners. Moments from everyday life continually find their way into Morris’ practice, whether through collections of keys, party balloons or multidimensional spaces built to carry multiple stories simultaneously. Pieces of Lego feel like an homage to the imaginative environments Morris created as a child.
These found and cherished objects make the viewer even more engaged. As Morris explains: “Working from a shared memory, I am utilizing [objects] that [people] can recognize. I acknowledge myself as an American because I am working with American objects, and anyone here remembers that. [These objects] leave the work in universal places. What is reflected from it is what they see. Using found objects has taught me not me, but we all have memory of it.”
The longer one spends with the work and its accompanying description, the more details emerge, such as the “deflated balloons, after the party.” While these objects represent specific lived experiences for Morris, he remains interested in and open to audiences interpreting them differently.
The artist sees himself as a conduit through which the world he is building can be experienced differently, believing that it belongs as much to the audience as it does to him. As he puts it: “I’m just giving you enough for it to be your story.” He invites viewers into a world that he is gathering, collecting and nurturing. Context feels vital to understanding the work, even though it remains open to interpretation.
This is particularly evident in I Too Can Do What the Earth Can, Quietly Wait for the Sun to Return, which comprises a lamp installed beside a painting and a prescription bottle. The work reflects how the park was one of the first places to welcome Morris after he arrived in Harlem. As he explains, “The lamp became a metaphor for myself, where the electric cord comes out as a prescription bottle, and the prescription I take to maintain my life because I’m HIV positive. Electricity that maintains life…” It is impossible to separate the work from its meaning, as Morris generously reflects on his own life through his practice. The medication literally sustains his life, while the lamp evokes the park where he first felt a sense of belonging and flourished socially. Together, these two elements embody a deeply personal duality.
Morris’ work reveals aspects of his life through these collections of expanded paintings in pursuit of a deeply personal truth—one that viewers are invited to engage with and participate in. His work rewards sustained attention, even if the meanings viewers find differ from those Morris intended. As he says:
“I want freedom, that’s what I want. I have a lot of memories of fear and shame, and I want freedom. The work is a manifestation of freedom for all of us.”
