Urban Art Gallery’s Caribbean Creatives Art Show celebrates a community within a community

Karl Morris will tell you he has no background as an artist. He simply loves art.

“I can’t paint at all. I can’t draw,” he said.

But that didn’t stop Morris, who works for the U.S. Postal Service as a letter carrier, to open the Urban Art Gallery in West Philadelphia.

“To me, art is inspirational, it’s peaceful, it’s beautiful.”

Morris, whose first name is Kalphonse, often goes by Karl. He opened the gallery at 262 S. 52nd St. in 2013 and celebrated its 10th-year anniversary earlier this year.

He developed his love for art during an art appreciation course he took at West Philadelphia Catholic High School for Boys. At 17 and 18, he would take a bus to New York just to visit the art galleries. Sometimes he went with friends, and sometimes he went alone.

For years, he considered his love for art a quiet passion.

“Even my brothers didn’t know how much I loved art until I opened the gallery.”

After high school, he took a few semesters of college, hoping to major in engineering.

When college didn’t work out because he didn’t have the resources to continue, he took a number of other jobs: working in sales for a furniture store, at a video store, a check-cashing place, and then for a decorating company. That last job meant he had a chance to study the art works hanging in the Main Line mansions he was sent to to decorate for parties.

Now 57, Morris began working for the Postal Service in 1994. After a stint delivering mail in West Philadelphia, he started a route in Center City.

There, he delivered mail to art galleries and talked to their owners about the works on their walls.

He also struck up conversations with two Center City law partners who each had huge art collections in their office.

Long before he became a postal worker, however, Morris began investing in real estate, starting out near 51st and Locust Streets, where he grew up, not far from the Urban Art Gallery.

Initially, he was going to lease the 52nd Street building for retail space.

But as he talked to Black artists and other emerging artists of color, he learned of their frustrations about not being able to show their works at upscale galleries in Center City.

“To me, art is inspirational, it’s peaceful, it’s beautiful.”

“It seemed like getting into the galleries downtown, you had to be in some secret society,” Morris said.

So he decided to combine his own love for art with a desire to give back to the community.

And now, amid the nail salons, fast food restaurants, clothing stores, Hakim’s Bookstore, and more, there is an art gallery on 52nd Street.

Morris wanted this West Philly art gallery to not only open doors for emerging artists, but announce to community residents that art was for them, too.

“I wanted art to be in this community and for the community to love art,” he said.

The neighborhood is majority Black and many people had never been inside an art gallery before, he said.

“I would sit at the front window on Friday nights and wave for people to come inside and take a look.”

People would ask if it cost money to enter. Or, they might say they weren’t dressed properly to come inside.

“I’d tell them, look at me, I’m still in my mailman’s uniform,” he said. “I wanted to let people know that it’s OK to appreciate the arts and to come into an art gallery and not feel intimidated.”

It was important for them to know, he said, that “art is not just for rich people downtown.”

On Saturday, the Urban Art Gallery will open its Caribbean Creatives Art Show to celebrate Caribbean Heritage Month.

Morris was born in London to Jamaican parents. His family returned to Jamaica when he was about 2 or 3, he said. And when he was 4 or 5, they moved to Philadelphia, where his grandparents had migrated years before.

He remembers starting kindergarten at a local church at age 5. After that, he was educated in Philadelphia’s Catholic schools.

The show is the brainchild of Erice Reid, an educator and artist who was born in Jamaica and came to the United States at age 11. She partnered with Morris to present the first Caribbean Creatives show in 2017.

Reid, who works for the New Jersey Department of Education’s Office of Special Education and lives in Delaware County, has been an artist all her life. She said she comes from a family of creative people who were artists or musicians, and she is a writer and has also made jewelry. Currently, she is focusing on painting acrylics on canvas.

A few years ago, at an art exhibit, she realized that many of the artists had similar backgrounds. She thought it would be cool to have an exhibit featuring artists from the Caribbean or from Africa.

“We are a community within a community,” she said.

Reid will have at least two paintings depicting the Maasai people in the exhibit. This week, she was still working on a third piece, a portrait of a woman, that she was hoping to finish before the show’s opening.

Jae Martin was born in Brooklyn to parents from Barbados. He lives in Devon, Pa., and has an art studio in Germantown, where he creates art he describes as “Graf-Pop” — it uses elements of graffiti and pop art.

He is known for grayscale paintings of popular figures such as former President Barack Obama, the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis, and the rappers Biggie Smalls, Tupac Shakur, and Nipsey Hussle. The grayscale portraits have bold colors splashed across their faces.

“I use a lot of bright, bold colors,” Martin said. “My family is from Barbados and those colors are a presentation of Barbados. Those colors represent love.”

Examples of his work can be seen at his website.

“My family is from Barbados and those colors are a presentation of Barbados.”

Martin, 46, quit his day job working in shipping logistics for a major retail store chain a couple of years ago to work full-time as an artist.

Although born in New York, Martin lived in Barbados for five years as a child. After returning to New York, he spent summers on the island with his grandmother.

“I love the people, I love the food. I want to represent them. And I want people to know it’s not just a place to go to as a tourist. People live there. It’s home.”

The Caribbean Creatives Art Show opening is from 6 to 8 p.m. Saturday, June 10, at the Urban Art Gallery, 262 S. 52nd St., Philadelphia, 215-919-2424.

The free show will run through July. Gallery hours are 5 to 8 p.m. Wednesdays and Fridays and noon to 5 p.m. on Saturdays.