Morton Fine Art in Texas Contemporary

Fair Dates/Hours/Location

September 29 – October 2, 2016 – George R. Brown Convention Center – 1001 Avenida De Las Americas Houston, Texas 77010

OPENING NIGHT: TEXAS CONTEMPORARY PREVIEW

Thursday September 29, 2016

6:00pm to 10:00pm

6:00pm – 8:00pm | Early Access: Exclusively for those who have paid to receive a Patron VIP Pass

8:00pm – 10:00pm| The Preview opens to VIP Pass and Fair Pass holders

PURCHASE TICKETS

PUBLIC FAIR HOURS

Friday, September 30
11:00am to 7:00pm
Saturday, October 1
11:00am to 7:00pm
Sunday, October 2
12:00pm to 6:00pm

Featured Artists

Maya Freelon Asante, Osi Audu,Victor Ekpuk, Nate Lewis, Julia Fernandez-Pol, Vonn Sumner & Charles Williams

Tips for the Emerging Art Collector

When starting an art collection, purchasing art can be a very daunting task. Many find the idea of it intimidating and overwhelming. However, the truth is that it doesn’t have to be that difficult. There are all kinds of ways in which art collecting is open to everyone…one just needs to take that first step. Art isn’t always a $10 million painting and you don’t always have to find it in a gallery in New York City.  This post is going to share some tips on how to begin your journey down the fun path of collecting art.

Julia Fernandez Pol, Reef Series 8, 23.5″x 18.5″, bas-relief hand painted monoprint

Tip #1: Buy art you like/love/couldn’t live without.

This is the first thing any collector will tell you. There is nothing like a regretted purchase, especially when it comes to art. That is why it is strongly suggested that you buy works that really speak to you. When buying a work of art, you want to make sure that it is something that you will still want to look at after it’s been on your wall for some amount of time. Works that make you stop and notice something new in them every time you look are the best kinds of works. If you see a piece in a gallery and you can’t stop thinking about it or continuously go to see it, that’s probably the art collector inside telling you something. At Morton Fine Art, we have the option of taking art works out on approval so that you can hang them in your home/office for a short period of time to get a feeling of what it would be like living with the piece.

Charles Williams, Self Portrait with Goggles 4, 10″x8″, oil on mylar

Tip #2: Artwork doesn’t have to match your sofa. Or other pieces in your in collection.

This is a good follow up to the “Buy art you love” tip. It can be a touchy subject as on a few occasions, some people have come into the gallery looking for something to match a piece of furniture or a wall in their space. While it is really awesome when works of art match, it can stifle the creative freedom that makes art collecting fun. Buying your first piece of art doesn’t have to dictate the direction your collection will go. You can mix landscapes with figurative works, abstracts with realism. For example, works on paper are a great way to keep  In the end, it’s really about how they make you feel. Your art collection is a story about you and the experiences you’ve had in your life time.

Trance Dance, 2002, 26″x 19″, oil and pastel on handmade paper

Tip #3: More often than not, art IS in your budget.

A lot of potential collectors get scared off from buying art because they automatically assume the works are going to be out of their price range. Stories from auction houses about works that sell for millions don’t help alleviate this misconception. There are different ways galleries can help you figure out how to buy your first piece. When you are going to a gallery to buy art for the first time, don’t be afraid to ask questions. Also, keep in mind that certain factors will determine the price of a piece. Medium for example, can dictate the price of an artwork. From my own personal experience, I’ve built my collection (which include works by Vonn Sumner, Katherine Hattam, Nathaniel Donnett and Kesha Bruce) around buying works on paper because I find that they fit within my budget more so than works on canvas. That shouldn’t, however, prevent you from figuring out which mediums you like best.

Other ways can be through extended payments. For example, art works can be put on payment plans. Galleries will break up the cost of a piece into more easily payable payments over a 2-3 month period. This is helpful because it will help you budget and feel more secure in your art purchase. However, don’t always assume a gallery will offer you a plan. If you are really interested in a piece, ask the gallerist about their financial options.

If you are interested in starting your art collection or are looking to add something new to your already started collection, please contact the gallery. New collectors, ask about our New Collector Initiative!

OSI AUDU’s artwork in Venice Biennale Collateral Event exhibition – FRONTIERS REIMAGINED

Morton Fine Art is very happy to announce that OSI AUDU’s work will be showing in this year’s Venice Biennale Collateral Event exhibition – FRONTIERS REIMAGINED.

About OSI AUDU (New York, b. Nigeria)

OSI AUDU works in series, and is inspired by the discourse on the nature of consciousness, the dualism of something and nothing, light and dark, form and void.  Inspired by the Yoruba people of Western Nigeria’s belief that consciousness, referred to as the “head”, has both a physical dimension called the “outer head” and a spiritual one, “the inner head”, he fuses together cultural, scientific, and artistic ideas. His drawings on paper, titled – Self-Portrait are more about the portrait of the intangible essence of self, rather than a literal portrait of the artist. His drawings can also be made directly on the wall as a large scale wall drawing.

Select collections include Newark Museum, The British Museum, The Horniman Museum, The Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, and National Gallery, Lagos.

Available Artwork

Osi Audu, Self Portrait XXXI, 2014, 22.5″x30″, graphite & pastel on paper

Osi Audu, I Can See Your House from Here, 2014, 15″x22.5″, pastel on paper

Osi Audu, Self Portrait III, graphite & pastel on paper, 23″x30″

Osi Audu, Self Portrait I, graphite & pastel on paper, 23″x30″

About FRONTIERS REIMAGINED

The phenomenon of globalization, where cultures are colliding and melding as never before, offers rich and complex sources of inspiration for artists. Frontiers Reimagined examines the results of these cultural entanglements through the work of forty-four painters, sculptors, photographers and installation artists who are exploring the notion of cultural boundaries. These emerging and established artists-who come from a vast geographical landscape stretching from the West to Asia to Africa-share a truly global perspective, both in their physical existence, living and working between cultures, and their artistic endeavors. Each demonstrates the intellectual and aesthetic richness that emerges when artists engage in intercultural dialogue.

Frontiers Reimagined, a Collateral Event of the 56th International Art Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia, has been granted the patronage of the esteemed Italian Ministry of Culture. It is being mounted in partnership with the Venetian state museum authority, the Soprintendenza speciale per il patrimonio storico, artistico ed etnoantropologico e per il polo museale della città di Venezia e dei comuni della Gronda lagunare.

Commissioner and Curator: Sundaram Tagore

Co-Curator: Marius Kwint

Coordinating Director: Nathalie Vernizzi

Publications Director: Kelly Tagore

Organizational support in Venice: Mario Di Martino, Studio Antonio Dal Ponte

Technical Consultant: Zattera Marangon Associati Architects

Transportation/Installation: Apice, Ott Art, Venice

http://www.frontiersreimagined.org/

Morton Fine Art at Aqua Art Miami featured in the Washington City Paper

A Look at the D.C. Galleries and Artists at Miami’s Aqua Art Fair

Posted by Perry Stein and Christina Cauterucci on Dec. 4, 2014 at 4:20 pm

While D.C. chills in the freezing rain, D.C. gallerists are sweating out Miami humidity in breezy, emptied hotel rooms at South Beach’s Aqua Art fair, one of several fairs operating alongside Art Basel this weekend.

Amy Morton of Morton Fine Art has been showing at Aqua for three years, and brought a collection of paintings, photos, drawings, and collages from a slew of living contemporary artists, including three from D.C. The gallery scored one of the largest (and coolest, temperature-wise) rooms at the fair. The Miami art fairs put D.C. on the global art radar, Morton says. “D.C., we’re really making our stamp down here,” she says, and since Morton made its Aqua debut, “I’m seeing more of a D.C. presence overall.”

At Morton’s booth, the work of local artist Stephon Senegal—who does most of his work in bronze and steel—was represented in large-format portrait photos of children. Senegal has an undergraduate degree from Howard University and a master’s from the Maryland Institute of Contemporary Art. Morton also showed oil paintings from Nigerian-born D.C. artist Victor Ekpuk(top) and mixed-media collages by GA Gardner, who worked in D.C. for many years and now lives in Trinidad (below).

A few doors down, Farmville, Va.’s J. Fergeson Gallery sold one of several $1,400 model trains painted by D.C. graffiti artist Tim Conlon (below) and is exhibiting a few of his spray-painted canvases, too. Fergeson has brought Conlon’s work to Miami for a few years now, but always as part of a collection of several artists. This year, Fergeson’s showing Conlon on his own. “His trains have always been popular, but it’s never worked out that I’ve had a good venue to show his paintings before,” says gallery founder Jarrod Fergeson. Conlon’s working on a street-art piece on a wall in Miami’s Wynwood Art District this week.

Hamiltonian Gallery, also at Aqua, is showing the work of several of its fellows and alumni. Joshua Haycraft‘s tiny sculptures (below) are cataloged as elements of an alternate universe called BHBITB. Though the pieces are all handmade, Haycraft made painstaking efforts to craft them in precise, geometric forms that look like they could have come from a 3-D printer.

Also in Hamiltonian’s room at Aqua is one of Sarah Knoebel‘s “Cycles” videos of a frozen ball of detritus—a head of lettuce, fake hair, feathers—melting in a cloudy tank of water. The gallery’s already sold “Rock My World,” one ofAnnette Isham and Zac Willis‘ $500 collages depicting Michael Jackson and Elvis as religious idols (below), riding googly-eyed unicorns and ruling over Lisa Frank cat stickers. Art collectors who are scared of the dark, take note: One of the Elvis pieces still on view (bottom) gave the Hamiltonian reps a shock as they closed up shop last night. When they turned out the lights, they noticed for the first time that it glows in the dark.

Follow #washingtonmiamipaper on Twitter and Instagram for more updates on D.C. artists and galleries from the Miami art fairs this weekend.

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AMY MORTON, ANNETTE ISHAM, GA GARDNER, HAMILTONIAN GALLERY, J. FERGESON GALLERY,JARROD FERGESON, JOSHUA HAYCRAFT, MORTON FINE ART, SARAH KNOEBEL, STEPHON SENEGAL, TIM CONLON, VICTOR EKPUK, WASHINGTON MIAMI PAPER, ZAC WILLIS

Morton Fine Art – Booth #216 at Aqua Art Miami 14

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Artwork Images of WILLIAM MACKINNON’s “Crossroads”

Reviewed in The Washington Post when liken to Henri Rousseau, here are select images of paintings from WILLIAM MACKINNON’s recent solo exhibition “Crossroads” at Morton Fine Art in Washington, DC.

 

WILLIAM MACKINNON, Trouble Will Find Me (The National) , 48″x58″, acrylic, oil and automotive enamel on linen

 

WILLIAM MACKINNON, Farewell Transmission (Magnolia Electric Co.), 58″x48″, acrylic, oil and enamel on linen

 

WILLIAM MACKINNON, Landscape As Self Portrait 2 (Leaving), 48″x58″, acrylic, oil and automotive enamel on linen

 

WILLIAM MACKINNON, Almost Was Not Good Enough (Moonlight II), 58″x48″, acrylic, oil and automotive enamel on linen

 

View paintings by Australian artist WILLIAM MACKINNON at Morton Fine Art’s booth #216 at Aqua Art Miami, December 3 -7th. Please contact the gallery for availability and acquisition.

mortonfineart@gmail.com

(202) 628-2787

http://www.mortonfineart.com

Morton Fine Art at Aqua Art Miami 2014

Morton Fine Art invites you to attend Aqua Art Miami. For the third consecutive year, MFA will be located in booth #216 at Aqua Art Miami international fine art fair.  

Show Hours

Wednesday, December 3 | 3pm-10pm | VIP Opening Preview Party (for VIP pass holders)

Regular Fair Hours
Thursday, December 4 : 12pm – 9pm
Friday, December 5 : 11am – 9pm
Saturday, December 6 : 11am – 9pm
Sunday, December 7 : 11am – 6pm

Location

Aqua Art Miami – Aqua Hotel, 1539 Collins Ave, Miami Beach, FL 33139

Aqua is located on Collins Ave, a short walk south of Art Basel Miami Beach, across from the Loews Hotel.

Morton Fine Art will be located in Suite 216.

Featured Artists

Maya Freelon Asante (North Carolina, b. USA)

Osi Audu (NYC, b. Nigeria)

Kesha Bruce (France, b. USA)

Ethan Diehl (Iowa, b. USA)

Victor Ekpuk (Washington, DC, b. Nigeria)

GA Gardner (Trinidad, b. Trinidad)

Katherine Hattam (Melbourne, b. Australia)

Choichun Leung (NYC, b. Wales)

William Mackinnon (Melbourne, b. Australia)

Nnenna Okore (Illinois, b. Nigeria)

Andrei Petrov (NYC, b. USA)

Stephon Senegal (Washington, DC, b. USA)

Vonn Sumner (Los Angeles, b. USA)

Charles Williams (North Carolina, b. USA)

Preview the work on the Morton Fine Art website: www.mortonfineart.com

mortonfineart@gmail.com, (202) 628-2787

DAK’ART Biennale opens May 9th, 2014 in Dakar, Senegal

 

The International Exhibition of African and African diaspora artists is the main event of the Biennale. The selection is entrusted to the curators of Dak’art 2014: Elise Atangana for selecting the diaspora, Abdelkader Damani for North Africa and Smooth Ugochukwu Nzewi for sub-Saharan Africa. The selection is the combined result of artists invited by the curators, eight for each curator, and artists selected on the basis of portfolios provided by the artists or their representatives.

At this international exhibition are added four other events: an exhibition of guest artists dedicated to cultural diversity, the exhibition of African sculpture, Tributes exhibitions and Dak’Art into the Campus.

“Producing the common”

” All over the world biennial exhibitions multiply with the aim of creating a global image. Some might see it as a clear manifestation of globalization, a most exasperated expression, and a repetition of contemporary art exhibitions in a never-ending quest for novelty. For others, including us, the multitude of art biennials is an attempt to find “globality” and a common desire to produce a feeling of a singular world (Tout-Monde) in each place, a term coined by Édouard Glissant. What Glissant calls the “Whole-World,” is “our universe that is ever changing yet remains the same, and the vision that we have of it.” 
“Producing the common” is our central theme for Dak’Art 2014. With this theme, we seek to link politics and aesthetics in a vigorous and engaged way. Is the encounter of works of art in a specific place, the art exhibition, not an attempt to instantly produce the public space which people seek through movement and protests?
Most contemporary artists see politics as the prism through which they receive and interpret existential reality. They engage reality in their works and consequently involve their work in reality. Aesthetics is shaped by a wealth of forms and approaches used by artists to make their work legible. Thus, if politics is a way of communicating in the public space, is art therefore the base?
Art, more than any other domain, creates a chain of relations between men and women, but also the interplay between humanity, nature and the Universe. Artists’ creations must possess the vital force in order to command the attention of audiences. Art should be able to take into account common aspirations, fears, hopes and daily struggles with the utmost sincerity. That is why we think of the exhibition as the “distribution of the sensible,” to draw from Jacques Rancière. It is why we share his point of view of linking politics to art and aesthetics.
Our framework, “to produce the common”, is a conscious act of engaging what is collectively shared, and to take into account what affects everyone, the “Whole-World”. For Dak’Art 2014, we are interested in new modes of address used by contemporary artists (from Africa and elsewhere) in thinking critically about art and the artistic process as a public vocation, and as part of the whole. 
A timetable for video screening and cinema, as well as interventions in public spaces, completes this program for Dak’Art 2014, anchored in both reality and the imaginary. We hope this ensemble will provide a space and time to think about art, politics, and affirm that being together is the only horizon for human creation. “

By the curators: Elise Atangana, Abdelkader Damani, Smooth Ugochukwu Nzewi.

Venue: Village of the Biennale, Route de Rufisque.

Don’t miss the work of Morton Fine Art’s VICTOR EKPUK on view at DAK’ART 2014.  For available work by this internationally celebrated artist, please visit http://www.mortonfineart.com.

Victor Ekpuk, Soliloquy Series 5, 15″x12″, collage, ink & tempera on handmade paper

VICTOR EKPUK’s “State of Beings (Totem)” at Dak’Art 2014

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State of Beings (Totem) : installation, 220 x510x452x4 cm, acrylic vinyl and metal on wood panel and vinyl mat, 2013, Courtesy of the artist and Fondation Jean-Paul Blachère, Apt, France.

State of Beings is a mixed media installation that combines painting and sculpture in equal measure. The sculptural portion of the work stands upright against the wall whereas the painting is primarily on the floor. The two connect through the continuous lines of Nsibidi, an ancient graphic system that is autochthonous to south-eastern Nigeria and the Ejagham area of northern Cameroon. The swirling script-like patterns of State of Beings are also based on Ekpuk’s own invented signs. The fluidity of the symbols creates continuity in the installation, merging the wall into the ground seamlessly. Conceptually, the installation is a totemic portrayal of the male-female binary as composite of the human condition. The two figures physically face each other. Their emotional and psychic connection is evident in the thick red line that runs across the work, from the head of the male figure to the head of the female.

Victor Ekpuk was born in Nigeria in 1964. In 1989 Victor received his Bachelor of Fine Art degree (BFA), Obafemi Awowolo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, where he first explored the aesthetic philosophies in indigenous African art forms like Nsibidi, and Uli. Their economy of lines and encoded meanings led him to further explore drawing as writing, and to the invention of his own glyphs. In addition to operating a painting studio in Lagos, he was also a prominent editorial illustrator/political cartoonist for Nigerian newspapers before moving to the United States in 1999. He currently lives and works in Washington DC. His artworks are in private and public collections such as Smithsonian Institution National Museum of African Art, Newark Museum, The World Bank, University of Maryland University College, Hood Museum, United States Art in Embassies Art Collection, Fidelity Investment Art Collection. Victor’s work have been featured in such venues as Krannert Art Museum, Champaign, Illinois, USA, Fowler Museum, Los Angeles, USA. Museum of Art and Design (MAD), New York City, USA. Newark Museum, New Jersey, USA. The World Bank, Washington DC, USA. Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of African Art, Washington DC, USA. New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York City, USA. Johannesburg Biennial, South Africa.

View available artwork by visiting http://www.mortonfineart.com

MFA’s Artist Meet & Greets at Aqua Art Miami

Join MORTON FINE ART at Aqua Art Miami December 4-8, 2013

Artist “meet and greets” scheduled in our Booth 216 at 3pm 

 

MAYA FREELON ASANTE – Thursday, 12/5 at 3pm 

Maya Freelon Asante with her tissue ink monoprint and Ubuntu tissue quilt sculpture, photo credit: Greg Powers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

STEPHON SENEGAL – Friday, 12/6 at 3pm

Stephon Senegal sculpting in bronze, photo credit: Stephon Senegal

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

KESHA BRUCE – Saturday, 12/7 at 3pm

Kesha Bruce in front of her series “The Guardians” unveiling at Aqua and her solo at Morton Fine Art opening Saturday, December 14th, 2014, photo credit: Kesha Bruce