LONDON.- Contemporary art specialist Serena Morton and music manager/promoter Raye Cosbert have joined forces in a unique art venture, Morton Metropolis, which opens to the public in London's West End on February 10th 2010. The combination of Morton and Cosbert's expertise within the visual arts and music sectors brings a new dimension to the contemporary art market, for artists and buyers alike. Nurturing of talent and the subsequent promotion of it, a hallmark of Cosbert's experience thus far, combined with Morton's rare and proven ability to identify and develop the careers of leading artists, ensures that the launch of Morton Metropolis and its 2010 programme will be one of the art world’s most exciting developments this year.

Morton Metropolis’ Spring/Summer season will open with a short but powerful exhibition of prints by celebrated artist, Gerald Laing. Laing's latest screenprint, Belshazzar's Feast, will be launched at the opening of his exhibition. It is an illustration of the political and social situation in Britain today. Laing will be the first of five artists to exhibit at the gallery. Subsequent exhibitions commence with Rupert Shrive, known for his singular practice of turning painting into sculpture; continues with Angus Hampel, an emerging artist, producing extraordinary images of creation with oil and gold; Stuart Semple, whose paintings present a hybrid mix of zeitgeist imagery culled from a pop landscape and an installation by Damian Elwes, that explores the fragile relationship between human beings and the planet we live on.

Gerald Laing has produced some of the most significant works of the British pop art movement. In London during the early 1960s he pioneered the painting of enormous canvasses based on newspaper photographs of models, astronauts and film stars. In recent years Laing has returned to his earlier style, using media images of topical events and figures. His latest works demonstrate the unsettling collision in today's media between the obsession with celebrity status and image, and the grittier topics of war and politics. This inaugural Morton Metropolis
exhibition ‘Gerald Laing – Graphics’ will show a selection of Gerald Laing prints from both his vintage and recent collections.

Serena Morton has been involved in the fashion, music and television industries before moving into the art world. She joined Christie's in the Nineties where she worked in 20th Century and Contemporary British Art. In 1998 Serena was instrumental in setting up one of the first pop up shows in London's Brick Lane. In spring 2006, she became a curator of Scream gallery in Mayfair and organised sell-out shows for Damian Elwes and Rupert Shrive. In 2008 she set up her independent business, Agent Morton.

Raye Cosbert has worked in the music industry for many years, promoting world famous concerts within Metropolis Music and personally managing one of the 21st Century's biggest talents Amy Winehouse. Cosbert in conjunction with Metropolis Music has worked with artists that include Blur; Robbie Williams, Coldplay and Lily Allen. He was also the first promoter to operate at the Royal Opera House in London.