Crown of Creation: Jeremy Morgan at Continuum Fine Art.Beyond and Within; An Exhibition of Paintings
Lifestyle | marinij.com
Sunday, August 30, 2026
By Barry Willis, IJ Correspondent
Spectacular, overwhelming, gorgeous.
These are a few simple adjectives that spring to mind attempting to describe “Beyond and Within,” a new exhibit of paintings at Continuum Fine Art in Pt. Reyes Station, through September 27.
Marin’s most recent and most ambitious art gallery has a massive hit on its hands with its new show devoted completely to the works of Jeremy Morgan, a UK native and longtime Marin resident.
Ebullient, loquacious, and professorial — the artist worked for many years as an instructor at the San Francisco Art Institute, in its prime one of the premier such institutions in the US — Morgan is a strong online presence in art discussions, and an even stronger presence in person, should you be lucky enough to catch one of his artist’s talks at Continuum.
For those unable to get out to Pt. Reyes, the gallery has a lengthy video clip of Morgan talking about his history and his work, a lifelong multi-disciplinary effort that has yielded some of the most amazing images you may ever encounter.
Some background is recommended in that there is more going on in his work than is first apparent.
Contemporary art falls into three general categories: representational, abstract, and conceptual or idea-based work. Representational painting is the oldest form, depicting people, places, and events realistically. That was its primary purpose until the advent of photography, which as Morgan mentions in one of his online discussions, freed painters to explore other modes of expression, such as impressionism, where scenes allude to actual places with no attempt at accuracy.
J.M.W. Turner, for whom the Turner prize is named, was a British pioneer of this movement; his creations had a profound effect on the young Morgan, who later ventured off the beaten track of European traditionalism into Asian art and cultures. He’s also a polymath with many interests including history, science, and art-related technologies both ancient and modern.
All of these influences can be felt in each of his intensely-rendered paintings, some of them modestly scaled but most — at Continuum, at least — imposing and demanding of attention. Serenity and turmoil reside quite compatibly in all of them, where it’s impossible not to perceive the beauty of earthly storms or cosmic collisions.
Traditionalists often deride abstract art as being “about nothing” because for the most part, abstract paintings are exercises in form, color, and the artist’s emotional state. They are generally not about anything in the external world — hence the exhibit’s title “Beyond and Within.”
Making a distinction between “thinking” (our response photos or text) and to “feeling” (our response to music), Morgan hesitates to call himself an abstract painter, stating that he is more taken with energy than dimensional forms. Even so, the exhibit demonstrates his mastery of the abstract lexicon.
But there’s an implied back story to each painting, and to the exhibit as a whole. Morgan has clearly studied diverse religions and scientific theories. Hesitant as we may be to assign narratives to works such as his, it’s difficult to ignore that he is celebrating origin stories of all kinds — from the Big Bang of cosmology to the emergence of a new coastline by the eroding effects of crashing waves. Nature is violent and beautiful, revealed in all its wild glory in what Morgan describes as a marriage of “the optical and the psychic.”
“Beyond and Within” is a must-see exhibit, a destination by far worth the drive to west Marin. The collaborative installation by Charles Anselmo, Toni Littlejohn, and Morgan is an incredible art work in itself.
If You Go:
What: “Beyond and Within” – paintings by Jeremy Morgan
Where: Continuum Fine Art, 11101 Highway 1, Suite 109, Point Reyes Station, CA 94956
When: Through September 27. 12 noon to 5 p.m., Friday—Sunday
Contact: Toni Littlejohn 415-663-1313, littlejohn.art@gmail.com or
Charles Anselmo 415-407-3870, continuumfineart@gmail.com
Website: ContinuumFineArt.com