Progress: Is That All There Is?” – John Morra

“Progress? Is that all there is?” asks artist John Morra.

“I intend the title to be provocative,” he adds, “and I hope that what I have to say is equally provocative. My main idea is this: ‘progress,’ was initially seen as advancement towards a better world, with science, technology, and belief in the perfectibility of human institutions as the agents of these changes. While great strides were made, especially in the sciences, the visual arts were harmed by these ideas…”

In his paintings, John explores two modes. The first, traditional still life, is based on the classical vocabulary. The second consists of a series called “Mertz” compositions, which combine traditional technique with the subject of modern junk and machinery. John will present this program at his art studio in nearby Stuyvesant.

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John Morra (b.1962) was born in Meridian, Mississippi, and was raised and educated in Southern California. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Westmont College, Santa Barbara, California, in 1985 and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Printmaking from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1987. Graduate study brought him to New York, where he received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the New York Academy of Art in 1991.

John is a leading figure in the world of contemporary American realism. Inspired by the great masters – particularly Vermeer, Chardin, and Corot – John paints from life, painstakingly arranging props and objects in his studio. He isolates and transforms everyday objects such as mixers, lemon juicers, glass insulators, oil cans, plumb bobs, turkey basters, and gears with almost obsessive precision, resulting in a body of work that, while grounded in the past, is refreshingly dynamic, visually stimulating, and clearly of the 21st century. He lives in Stuyvesant, NY.

Visit his website.

This event is made possible with funds from the Statewide Community Regrants Program, a program of the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature and administered in Columbia County by the Columbia County Council on the Arts dba CREATE Council for the Arts.