Featured Artist: Dean Morrissey

DEAN MORRISSEY The artwork of Dean Morrissey weaves a delightful fabric from the threads of reality and imagination. In his paintings, Dean utilizes a dynamic range of visual elements that are at once familiar and fantastic. With shifts and spins of perspective, his art enters the province of enchantment and adventure.Dean has been creating images all his life. As a boy, he was inspired by stills, matte paintings and cells of Disney. He has since studied and been influenced by the works and techniques of many artists, particularly Rembrandt and Vermeer, as well as N.C. Wyeth and Howard Pyle. He was a freelance illustrator in New York for ten years - winning many awards and honors for his book cover illustrations for more than a dozen publishers - a career he found demanding, instructive and rewarding. In the late 1970's he began pursuing a full-time career as a painter. Also a writer, Dean has written and illustrated two best-selling children's books, Ship of Dreams and The Great Kettles: A Tale of Time. Other popular books followed including The Christmas Ship, The Moon Robber and The Monster Trap.Since 1992 when Dean’s limited editions exploded in the marketplace, he has published and distributed his works through Mill Pond Press and the Greenwich Workshop. High-quality giclees on canvas of his most famous works are now available through GalleryGiclees.com.Dean’s art has been so well received that he has achieved celebrity status and has been featured on NBC's Today Show, CBS Sunday Morning and CNN Headline News. His images have been on the cover of the FAO Schwarz Christmas catalogue, and in 1996, Saks Fifth Avenue chose Ship of Dreams as the theme for its annual animated holiday window display. His painting, The Great Kettles Train, earned the coveted Gold Medal for Book Illustration at the Society of Illustrators exhibition in New York City, and in June, a Ship of Dreams -themed IMAX movie theater opened on International Drive in Orlando.