Morley is a Los Angeles-based street artist, originally from Iowa City, who paints carefully crafted messages in the form of typographic posters on construction site fences, junction boxes, public bus benches, boarded-up stores, and other empty wall spaces across Los Angeles. His black and white images are centered on the message, written in bold, capitalized letters, oftentimes expressing an underlying thought-provoking response to the current mood of the city. An iconic illustration of the artist, often depicted being in the process of writing the message, accompanies every project. Many times, we only see the artist’s spinal image; he does not turn to the spectator observing the message. The artist in the illustration paints his message with a Sharpie marker or a paintbrush. Morley’s images seem to express the impermanence of art; the message is there to be read, and maybe to inspire, but not to stay.





Morley’s critical street art presents both a counteraction and response to the types of billboards and advertisements with rather void, shallow messages scattered across the city of Los Angeles. It is a reaction to the idea of urban community and space with its ever-changing rhythm. Morley knows how to uncover clichés, surprise, and reassure fellow voyeurs unknowingly roaming the city in search of meaning.





The artist’s first encounter with street art occurred during his art school studies at The School of Visual Arts in New York, NY. While being inspired by the street art appearing in NY at that time, Morley sought to find his personal style. In 2010 with the rise of a street art scene in Los Angeles, the artist turned his individual style of “public expressions of hope, humor, poetic reverie and relatable frustration” from stickers in NY subways to public contributions of a greater size. Morley creates street art to circumference his “frustration at what felt like barriers towards any kind of creative expression that doesn’t turn a profit”. Instead of waiting for approval for audience exposure, Morley chose his own path of interaction and connection with the world through his art:

I got tired of waiting for someone to tell me my voice had a place in this world. I’ve always considered myself a writer first [Morley has published two books titled “If You’re Reading This, There’s Still Time” (2014) and “Let’s Burn This Moment Down To The Filter” (2018) featuring prints of his art and commentary, N/A] and in the desperate grasp to connect with the world I began putting messages on stickers, then posters. These posters grew in size and ambition and I started included a drawing of myself to make the source of these messages a person, rather than a logo or a brand-but an unglamorous, unfashionable, regular person. My messages are primarily to reach people like me, similarly frustrated, looking for something that could inspire them, make them smile, give them hope, or offer a bit of wisdom. […] Maybe I’ll just say that I’m inspired by the notion that people that pass something I’ve pasted up could share in something-that we could relate to each other and discover that we’re not as alone in our struggles as we often feel.

Well-for me it’s a funny thing as I’ve struggled to turn my artwork into something you’d want to hang on a wall. For me, my art isn’t really finished until it’s on the street. I love the texture and the context that the street gives it. I’m always honored that anyone would want to hang something I’ve made on their walls at home but these were always messages that were supposed to be stumbled over as someone is going about their day. The messages change a bit when you remove that intention. That said, if someone finds a message of mine that they really want to be reminded of every day than I want to be able to give that to them. To answer your question-I think that art’s primary purpose is to help us all understand who we are, what we are, why we are, how we can fix the broken pieces of ourselves. In that journey, everything is temporary. Even us.