Greg and Jon Mort - Explorations     Nov 20 - Jan 2, 2010

Throughout history, the relationship between one generation of artists and the next generation has been significant. In Explorations, father and son, Greg and Jon Mort investigate this relationship from a unique and personal perspective. Although their respective philosophies share a common lineage, each is exploring the manifestation of their view through individual expression.

Jon Mort distinguished himself with a recent masters degree in architecture from RISD. Always painting with his father, he began large-scale graphite portraiture while an undergraduate at Franklin and Marshall College. Recently graduating RISD in 2009 he is committing himself to full time painting and completing the multitude of portrait commissions accumulated during his graduate studies. He brings a 21st century approach to portraiture with his use of negative space surrounding detailed and life sized renderings of his subjects’ face and hands.

Greg Mort’s year reflects a series of on-going exciting events. To begin, Susan Rice, United States Ambassador to the United Nations selected his painting, One World, shown on the cover of our Art and Stewardship exhibition catalog last fall, to hang over the fireplace in the American consulate. Greg speaks about the power of the image and this placement by the state department fulfills his wish to communicate his personal commitment to stewardship to an international audience.

His painting Zero-G Apples was selected to fly aboard the International Space Station as part of “NASA’s First Art Exhibition in Space”. A NASA artist since 1983, Mort’s watercolor was one of only twelve paintings chosen for this first time honor. Zero-G Apples floated gravity free aboard the ISS for two weeks as NASA beamed images to millions of viewers back on Earth. All the works were auctioned off to benefit American’s 50 Challenger Science Centers.

In April, the Academy Art Museum in Easton, MD opened an exhibition, Making Art Explorations. In June, Greg and son Jon opened in an exhibition together at the new Portsmouth Museum of Art in New Hampshire.

In July, Mort received the news that President Obama selected his painting, Planet Evolution, for the White House Art Collection, an honor rarely bestowed on a living artist.

In September, 2009 Mort, a life long astronomer, has been asked to celebrate the International Year of Astronomy by exhibiting works and making a presentation at the Paris Observatory, France, as well as participating in an exhibition at the Palazzo Franchetti, Venice, Italy, entitled “The Inspiration of Astronomy on Art”