Serena Morton

343 Ladbroke Grove London W10 6HA info@serenamorton.com treehouselondon.org

MISSION STATEMENT:

Building environmental & creative blueprints that flourish within communities.

WHO WE ARE: Tree House is a creative agency with an environmental focus. Serena Morton (gallery owner and curator) and Paul Mowatt (curator and photographer) work together providing the platform to produce projects with an unequivocal green intent. Working closely with artists’ and makers’ studios, borough councils, local businesses and developers, Tree House will fundraise and curate tree or wood related exhibits, with the aim to help purchase, plant and nurture new trees within communities.

WHAT WE DO: • Taking inspiration from the Mayor’s London Plan Guidance Urban Green Factor report (below) we wish to utilise trees as the physical and curatorial inspiration for Tree House, a programmed series of art-related events in September 2022 in the Park Royal Design District. london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/urban_ greening_factor_lpg_pre-consultation_draft.pdf • Liaise with the boroughs of Ealing, Brent and Hammersmith & Fulham Councils to get an understanding of their future tree planting/ green plans. To establish how Tree House and fundraising can complement their long-term strategies. • To plant a tree walk from Acton Main and/or North Acton Tube into the Design District and use trees to define or highlight areas of that district. • Meeting with studio builders, artists and makers, local businesses and developers to discuss Tree House in the Park Royal Design District and surrounds. • We would produce an exhibition programme and related events curated on the Tree House theme in studios, streets, roof tops and around the Park Royal District. • Initially fundraise to allocate a third to trees, the exhibiting artists/makers and Tree House staff/ workers/costs. • We would produce, curate, market and promote the programme, as well as identify and build a team to advise and oversee tree planting and long-term care. • Propose to build a tree house as a community legacy. • Connect with the Queen’s Green Canopy Scheme to plant more trees for her Jubilee and understand if this can be part of the Elizabeth line opening plans. queensgreencanopy.org crossrail.co.uk/project/our-plan-to-complete- the-elizabeth-line/phased-opening • Meet with local companies such as Tesla, One West Point, McVitie’s and Art Logistics to discuss brand support and employee participation. • Speak to Imperial College London students within the local campus or residential dwellings to inform and gain engagement.

BIOGRAPHY:

SERENA MORTON

Serena Morton is active in environmental issues in her North Kensington community. She owns and runs a contemporary art gallery and lives in the neighbourhood with her two children. Serena was brought up in Kensington, London. She began her art world career at Christie’s Auction House, King Street, in 1994 and worked first in the Print Department and continued in Modern British, Post-War and Contemporary British Paintings and Sculpture. Leaving Christie’s in the late 1990s, Serena became a prolific pop-up curator in London and 2006 launched and directed Ronnie Wood’s art gallery ‘Scream’ in Mayfair. 2008 saw Serena launch her roving gallery Agent Morton and in 2010 build Morton Metropolis, on Berners Street, with Amy Winehouse manager Raye Cosbert. Her final West End space Agent Morton was on Dover Street until the increasingly high rent of the area made her radically reconsider where she would continue her gallery. In 2012 Serena opened her first West London gallery, Serena Morton, at Canalside, 385 Ladbroke Grove and the following year purchased the building 343 Ladbroke Grove, which is her primary exhibition space. From 2015 to 2017, Serena co-directed a photography gallery with curator David Hill before focusing solely on mid-career painters and sculptors, her long-term expertise.

BIOGRAPHY: PAUL MOWATT

Paul Mowatt supports his home community of Kingston upon Thames. In 2017 he created a project Homeless in the Royal Borough, in which he gave 20 homeless participants a camera to record their daily life. Their resulting photographs were then printed and exhibited. The project was very successful and ran annually until 2020. Subsequently it inspired other UK boroughs to carry out similar projects.

Recently, Paul has been curating and exhibiting a programme entitled ‘Artists Monthly’ at a small gallery space in Putney, West London.

Brought up in South West London and a teenager when the punk explosion shook the foundations of the establishment and British culture, Paul spent his early years documenting street life on the King’s Road and High Street Kensington for the pages of The Face and iD magazine.

After completing a degree at the London College of Printing and learning his art for several years as an Assistant Photographer and Printer Paul has had a successful career shooting fashion, portraits and landscapes. His portrait and feature work has been syndicated by Camera Press for 25 years and he has exhibited and sold his work at numerous art galleries including; the Institute of Contemporary Arts, Hamiltons Gallery, Smiths Row, the National Portrait Gallery and the Bluebird Gallery.

Publications such as Tatler, GQ, The Sunday Times Magazine, Creative Review and the London Evening Standard have all featured his work. Paul developed his eye for detail as an Art Director and Stills Photographer for film and television. His credits include ‘Wild West’ directed by Dawn French and Simon Nye, and ‘High Heels & Low Life’ directed by the late Mel Smith amongst others.

In 2017, Paul became the first Artist in Residence at the Kingston Museum, where he created a project based on the works of pioneering Victorian photographer Eadweard Muybridge. Using analogue photography and video he has produced detailed studies of the body in motion.

www.filippostsitsopoulos.com/