Concurrent solos by KATHERINE TZU-LAN MANN and ASTRID KOHLER presented by Morton Fine Art & *a pop-up project at Gallery B

 

KATHERINE TZU-LAN MANN

Echoing Green

April 3 – April 27, 2019

 

ASTRID KOHLER

Conflux

April 3 – April 27, 2019

 

Opening Reception

Friday, April 5th from 6-8pm

 

EXHIBITION LOCATION

Morton Fine Art at Gallery B

7700 Wisconsin Ave, Ste E

Bethesda, MD 20814

 

HOURS

Wednesday – Saturday 12pm – 6pm

 

 

KATHERINE TZU-LAN MANN, Leaves into Birds, 2019, 60″x36″, acrylic and sumi ink on stretched paper over canvas

 

 

About Echoing Green

My work’s abstractions arise from the subjects I portray: ecological and geological cycles, processes of chemical corrosion and natural efflorescence. With roots in traditions of Chinese landscape painting, my monumentally sized paintings and installations evolve a fantastic, abstract vision of the natural world. My latest work confronts the challenge: the resuscitation of landscape painting in a world where “landscape” is represented and defined through an ever-widening field of digital, graphic, and visual forms. How can a painting capture flux, abundance, waste, fertility, and the collision and collusion of diverse forms? How can it respond to the pressure we place on our era’s fragile ecosystem? My paintings explore both questions by sustaining tension between what is artificial and what is natural, between what is chemical and what is biological, between organic and inorganic. The paper on which I paint is not only a recognition of a tradition of Chinese painting; it is also a medium of vulnerability and expansiveness, susceptible to crease and tear as well as to collage and collation. My own role in the creation of the paintings strikes a balance between the purposive and the protective. I trust to process, chance, and change, but I encourage, direct, and facilitate all of these. In my most recent work, I hope to live in the tradition of landscape painting, experiencing it for what it has always been: an occasion for radical experimentation and confrontation with the world, in the broadest sense of the term, that sustains us.

-KATHERINE TZU-LAN MANN, 2019

 

 

 

About KATHERINE TZU-LAN MANN

Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann received her BA from Brown University and MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art. She is the recipient of a Fulbright grant to Taiwan, the AIR Gallery and Lower East Side Printshop Keyholder Fellowships in New York, NY, and the Individual Artist Grant, Arts and Humanities Grant, Mayor’s Award and Hamiltonian Fellowship in Washington, DC. She has attended residencies at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Blue Sky Dayton, Vermont Studio Center, Salzburg Kunstlerhauss, Triangle Workshop, Anderson Ranch Art Center, Bemis Center for the Arts, Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Facebook, and the Jaipur, India Carbon 12 Residency. Some of the venues where Mann has shown her work include the Walters Art Museum, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Rawls Museum, the US consulate in Dubai, UAE, and the US embassy in Yaounde, Cameroon. Mann is currently an instructor at the Maryland Institute College of Art. She is represented by Morton Fine Art in Washington, DC.

 

 

Available artwork by KATHERINE TZU-LAN MANN

 

 

 

 

ASTRID KOHLER, fucking Vogelkonig 2, 2018, 4.75″x4.75″, watercolor and acrylic on paper

 

 

 

About ASTRID KOHLER and Conflux

 

German painter ASTRID KOHLER combines old and new in her latest series Conflux. Artwork includes 19th century German portraits which have been over-painted with Kohler’s imaginative and playful images of perched birds and jumping baby ducks. Antique pastoral backgrounds have been layered with contemporary additions of leafy shoots of bamboo, and outlines of stylized, gold clouds.

 

Her still life paintings, some of which are layered with epoxy, are visually accentuated with dramatic pops of color, unexpected narrative elements and oftentimes contain animated wildlife. Her ten piece series “fucking Vogelkonig” features delicate birds masterly painted with a three-haired brush and then crowned with neon orange headdresses which juxtapose the artist’s incredible technical ability as a realist painter with fluid, gestural lines and attitude.

 

Kohler seeks new ways of arranging space and blending old and new to create tension for her creative inspiration. Conflux marks her first solo exhibition in the U.S. She is represented by Morton Fine Art in Washington, DC.

 

Available artwork by ASTRID KOHLER

 

 

About Morton Fine Art 

 

Founded in 2010 in Washington, DC, Morton Fine Art (MFA) is a fine art gallery and curatorial group that collaborates with art collectors and visual artists to inspire fresh ways of acquiring contemporary art. Firmly committed to the belief that anyone can become an art collector or enthusiast, MFA’s mission is to provide accessibility to museum-quality contemporary art through a combination of substantive exhibitions and a welcoming platform for dialogue and exchange of original voice.

 

Want to view artwork in DC? Come by our permanent gallery space:

 

Morton Fine Art

52 O St NW #302

Washington, DC 20001

Hours: Wed – Sat 12pm-5pm and Sun-Tues by appointment

(202) 628-2787

mortonfineart@gmail.com

http://www.mortonfineart.com

 

 

About *a pop-up project

 

Redefining the traditional gallery model, Morton Fine Art (MFA) replaces a single gallery space with two locations: MFA’s permanent fine art gallery space and *a pop-up project, a temporary mobile art gallery of curated group shows. Morton Fine Art established it’s trademark, *a pop-up project, in 2010.

WILLIAM MACKINNON sold out show “Internal Weather” featured in The Adelaide Review

Jane Llewellyn

March 8, 2016 12:19 PM.

20

William Mackinnon Exhibits Internal Weather

In his latest exhibition, Internal Weather, which sold out pre-opening, William Mackinnon uses scenes of landscapes combined with observations from everyday life to convey the feeling of what it’s like to be in the world now and more specifically what it’s like to be Australian.

“I really want to get across my experience and the feelings associated with these places,” Mackinnon says. “It’s not really representational of a place; it’s almost more a psychological feeling of going somewhere or leaving.”

The works carry with them a sense of nostalgia as Mackinnon is interested in his own personal experiences of the world. He uses the local scenery of places like Lorne where he has had a beach house for 15 years, as a starting point, adding elements from TV and advertising.

For example, travelling to Los Angeles influences the work Strange Country. The black silhouettes represent trees as seen from the Eames house looking through to Malibu Beach and the cartoon-like, or collage-looking, trees are inspired by Lorne.

“It’s trying to capture the complexity of the experience of all these things – the simultaneity of what it is to be alive,” Mackinnon says. “Although it’s a seemingly beautiful picture, there are rips in the water and the sun is incredibly hot.”

Other works such as The Great Indoors (ii), Summer in Mullimbimby is a painting of a friend’s house where he has stayed a number of times.

“It’s stuff we have an emotional investment in; it’s not an inanimate house.”

The image is immediately familiar and captures the essence of summer.

The Great Indoors (ii) Mullimbimy

The works are deliberately unpolished with Mackinnon particularly interested in the natural evolution of the paintings. He doesn’t know how they are going to turn out; he starts off with an idea and each day a new part develops.

“I like there to be a record of all the decision-making and the indecision and the thinking,” he says. “I want all that life and energy and the accumulation of time to be evident.”

Mackinnon describes his earlier work as being much more eclectic with lots of different influences, but over time his work has become more personal.

“I’m much more interested in what’s immediately around me and what’s inside my head and combining those two things. This show really is a good example of that.”

For Mackinnon, painting has always been the main medium and he prefers to work on a large scale, as the viewer can’t look at it all at once.

“I’m trying to communicate a feeling and the curiosity of looking,” he says. “I want the viewer to enjoy the playfulness of the quality of the paint and the scale. Also, to see the works beautifully lit in a gallery is a nice experience and it can’t be beaten.”

William Mackinnon
Internal Weather
Hugo Michell Gallery
Until Saturday, March 12
wmackinnon.com

 

Title image: William MacKinnon, Slow Down (Detail)

CHARLES WILLIAMS’ “Day Time” triptych arrives at Morton Fine Art

New oil on panel paints by artist CHARLES WILLIAMS. These new artworks are stunning, and the perfect complement to his “Nighttime” series which were included his September 2015 solo “Swim” at Morton Fine Art, in his traveling museum solo exhibitions, and at Aqua Art Miami.

 

CHARLES WILLIAMS, “Day Time 1″, 12″x12”, oil on panel

 

CHARLES WILLIAMS, “Day Time 2″, 12″x12”, oil on panel

CHARLES WILLIAMS, “Day Time 3″, 12″x12”, oil on panel

 

Please contact Morton Fine Art for available artwork by CHARLES WILLIAMS.

Morton Fine Art, 1781 Florida Ave NW, Washington, DC 20009

(202) 628-2787

mortonfineart@gmail.com

http://www.mortonfineart.com

CHARLES WILLIAMS featured in Azalea Magazine

After Spreading His Wings, Artist Charles Williams Longed To Return To His Roots. So He Painted His Way Home.

When I met Charles Williams, he was tucked into a small studio space at Redux Contemporary Art Center, working on a commissioned landscape piece. He invited me in, and asked if he could continue painting as we talked. I eagerly agreed; this offered me the opportunity to watch him transform a blank wooden canvas into a brilliant Lowcountry panorama.

Born and raised in Georgetown, SC, William’s talent was harnessed from a very young age. His parents were aggressively instrumental in his success.

“My mother noticed I was pretty good at coloring within the lines of my Ninja Turtle® coloring book,” Williams says, smiling. “She always had me drawing with a pen and pad.”

In elementary school, his mother made arrangements with the school’s art teacher to keep Charles after school, working on different art techniques, from colored pencil to water color
.
William’s mother wasn’t the only one supportive of his talent. On his first day of high school, his father visited the art teacher, Heath Hampton, and asked him what he could do for his son. Hampton took Williams under his wing, arranging private lessons with a local painter. There, he learned advanced art techniques, as well as the business side of the art world. When most kids were out partying or heading to Myrtle Beach for the weekend, Williams was at home painting, and with Hampton’s help, Williams received a scholarship to (SCAD) Savannah Collage of Art and Design.

“I switched majors back and forth”, Williams says. “They offered so much; I wanted to do it all.”
Williams graduated in 2006, with a major in advertising and a minor in fine arts. He got a job in Tampa, FL, with the Publix Corporation®, working on the design team for their Greenwise® product line. Although he found success with Publix®, Williams missed home.

“I was eight hours from home, so I started painting it,” Williams says.

He painted scenes of the Lowcountry, reliving memories of his life on the Black River. Williams submitted his work to a Tampa Gallery, and was accepted into a group show. Little did he know that a late night mistake would come to shape the signature of his work.

While working on a small painting for the group show, he spilled a cup of water on the canvas, making the paint bleed to the bottom. He put it aside and forgot about it. When the gallery director stop by his studio to check on his progress, she saw the painting, loved the drip look, and asked to have it.

Williams sold out his first two gallery shows, and things snowballed from there. Selling numerous paintings, including private and corporate commissions, Williams quit his job at Publix® to begin painting full time.
In 2009, Williams was accepted into the Hudson River Fellowship in New York, where 32 artists out of 5,000 applicants were invited to walk the trails of master landscape artists, and study the anatomy of nature.
“It was like a painting boot camp,” Williams says.

After completing the Hudson River Fellowship, Williams knew what he really wanted, so he moved back to Charleston. On a visit to the Robert Lange Gallery, he told the owner that he would one day be featured there. She smiled, gave him a hug, and told him to submit his work. After five “no’s,” the Robert Lange Gallery gave him a shot at a group show, where he sold every one of his paintings. He was given more shows, which also sold out. Williams was finally invited to join the gallery.

On top of managing the stresses that come with being a full-time artist, Charles Williams also gives back to the community that has given so much to him.

“I am always thinking of the kids in the classrooms who have talent, but don’t know how, or may not have the resources to cultivate that talent,” Williams says. “I want to give them the opportunities and experiences that my teachers offered me.”

In an effort to help foster creative students in multiple art forms, Williams formed the C.E. Williams Collaborative, offering what he has learned to middle and high school students interested in pursuing a career in the arts. He passes along the foundations and technical attributes of art, teaches students how to articulate their work, and how to build relationships with collectors.

“They are receiving all the important aspects of being a complete artist,” Williams says.

The C.E. Williams Collaborative recently held it first student art exhibition at Robert Lange Studios, giving the nine students of the Georgetown and Charleston County collaborative the opportunity to show their work.

“They have some killer work,” he says, smiling.

Today, Williams is working on a new series of paintings. He has a museum exhibition scheduled for the Spring 2015, at Burroughs and Chapin Art Museum in Myrtle Beach, where he will show works that reflect an issue dear to his heart.

“I have had multiple near drowning incidents in my past,” he says. “I have taken swimming lesson, but never been a confident swimmer.”

Williams has been researching the history of swimming, and how slavery and other cultural influences might have affected the African-American community’s relationship with swimming. Through his research, he found that for every Caucasian drowning, there are three African-American drownings.

“We hear all about deaths that result from drugs and violence,” Williams says. “But drownings are like a silent killer in this community.”

For William’s upcoming museum exhibition, he is working on a (social awareness) series of paintings pairing objects such as shoes and jewelry, items he feels the African-American community sees as status symbols, with water environments like pools and shorelines. He hopes this series will shine a light on the importance of focusing on water safety rather than the false security of material things.

Charles Williams truly embodies the spirit of art. Not only is he a master of the techniques that make his work so captivating, but he also processes humility and compassion that shows vibrantly in his work away from the canvas. He has both literally and figuratively taken the scenic route to where he is today…a place where he can create his own landscape.

By Will Rizzo