FLAT OUT:

When we gaze at constellations such as Orion or the Little Dipper, we see the stars as though aligned upon a flat plane, like dots on a paper.

The stars are not even remotely on the same plane, of course, but instead are scattered and separated by the layers of millions of light years. All that vastness of space collapsed into two-dimensionality in just a glance.

On the other hand, if we look into a mirror pointed at the sky, we see a living, moving image of infinity that defies the reflection’s physical parameters of only width and length.

When we flatten out the three-dimensional or take flatness out of the two-dimensional we begin to escape the rigidity of the dimensions, blurring the distinction between them, perhaps finding new places between them, places with visions as yet unseen.

John Morse showed an early childhood interest in art and at age 11 began twice-weekly evening oil painting classes. He attended for four years and soon earned commissions painting portraits, landscapes and murals. From the age of 15 he worked as a sign painter, including interstate billboards. At 16, he left home and moved to the Oregon coast where he worked on poster arts and super-graphic murals. With the exception of two years of high school art class, he received no further formal art training.

In 1981, he moved to Barcelona where he painted and sold watercolors of street scenes. When funds for materials ran low, he often created collage landscapes from found papers, usually litter. After three months, he was hired as art director at Diagonal, at the time the foremost art and culture magazine of Spain. While in Barcelona, he and fellow expatriate Brice Hammack formed Chi-Perro Studios, which created art from disposable plastic, including trash bags, grocery sacks and plastic wrap.

In 1982, Morse returned to America, and soon made New York City home. From 1984 to 1988, he produced A-R-T, a silent, 30-minute program on Manhattan Cable Television that each week presented a single screen image intended to convert the television into a sculptural box (the first episode offered the interior of an oven baking a chicken).

From 1986 to 2000, John Morse served on the founding board of directors of Socrates Sculpture Park while it was transformed from an abandoned landfill into an international center, dedicated to the exhibition of monumental sculpture. It is now part of the New York City parks department.

His collages have been displayed in New York galleries since 1986. His collage, drawings, watercolors, sculptures and installations have been exhibited at Kentler International Drawing Space, Brooklyn; Islip Art Museum, Islip, New York; and Match Fine Print, New York City. His collage is represented by Krause Gallery in Atlanta and Scoop Gallery in Charleston, South Carolina and currently also hangs at Silas Marder Gallery in Bridgehampton, New York, and R. Roberts Gallery in Jacksonville, Florida.

His work is in the private collections of, among others, sculptor Mark di Suvero; New York Commissioner of Cultural Affairs, Kate Levin; New York Commissioner of Transportation, Janette Sadik-Khan; installation artist and sculptor Eve Sussman; Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love; and Jacques d’Amboise, founder of the National Dance Institute. Morse and his partner, Ross Pedersen, have a home in East Atlanta Village and an apartment in New York’s East Village.