Introduction 
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Marc Morrel began his career in New York City  in the beginning of the 1960s exhibiting with Eve Hesse, Dan Flaven, Sol LeWitt, Tina Matkovic, Don Judd, Mark Di Suvero, among the many young painters of that period. It was an exciting time for the art world:  the abstract expressionists had already established themselves, breaking through many post-war barriers and clearing a path for the likes of Robert Rauchenberg, Jim Dine, Jasper Johns, Claus Oldenberg and other soon-to-be-famous pop artists.  It was also a time of cultural revolution in America, with a newly-elected president, John F. Kennedy, ushering in a hopeful age for all the arts.  Marc  was then  painting and making constructions of stuffed & shaped canvases, exhibiting this work in groups shows all over Manhattan, in galleries and institutions; and gaining a reputation as one of New York¹s up-and-coming artists.

Following the assassination of  President Kennedy, with a terrible war now dividing the country and finding it personally difficult to create art whilst hearing the cries of the men, women and children of Viet Nam on the daily news reports, he decided to use the only tool available to him to protest the constant atrocities, namely his artistic talent.  Early in 1966, he began a series of new work which uniquely incorporated the American flag as a focal point the very flag that, in the 1950s, as a young marine and member of the honor guard, he had raised and lowered at the Iwo Jima monument in Washington, D.C.  He knew the flag to be a powerful symbol, one that could not help but make his statement clear to all who saw it.

Stephen Radich a gallery owner who had similar feelings about the war, courageously decided to exhibit this astonishing work and set the date for December 1966.  The opening went well and was enhanced by the music of Phil Ochs, who soon became a good friend of the artist.  The next day, however, the exhibition was visited by the District Attorney, accompanied by several police officers, who served Radich with a summons under the Flag Desecration Act.  This led to a court case (the People of New York vs. Radich), which was defended by the American Civil Liberties Union, lasted until 1974 and eventually went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The court found in favor of the defense: Marc Morrel was exercising his constitutional right under the First Amendment guaranteeing freedom of speech (and therefore artistic expression).

But he had left America long before the case was resolved, feeling as he did the weight of excessive attention, even notoriety, for what to his mind was simply a conscientious statement against an unjust war.  Moreover, he wanted to get on with his work, which for him was only beginning.  He departed for Europe in 1968, in the wake of the deaths of both John and Robert Kennedy, Medgar Evers, and finally Dr. Martin Luther King.  "I felt I could no longer stay in my country, so filled with hate, and aggression" Marc later said in an interview.

In Europe he finished the last project he had begun in America,  Venceremos, a 20-minute dramatic documentary about the death of Ernesto"Che"Guevara, the South American revolutionary leader.  This was later screened at London¹s National Film Theater and throughout Europe. Then, after two of his U.K. exhibitions were canceled, at the ICA gallery in England and, in Scotland, at the 25th Edinburgh Festival, he decided to give Holland a try.  In 1971 he moved to Amsterdam, the city in which he is still living.

Once more the artist encountered problems stemming from the nature of his work. There were no institutes, no galleries, that would take the risk of insulting America by exhibiting his controversial flag constructions.  Concurrently, though, Marc was working with photographic collages, some of which were published in the English-language literary & features magazine Ins & Outs, edited by the American poet Eddie Woods, another Amsterdam-based expatriate.  Several exhibitions ensued; a few works were sold, including to municipal organizations; but in the main Marc Morrel survived by doing a variety of odd jobs for various people.  In 1979 he married a Dutch poet, Vera van Schaik:  "A partnership that was to change my life!  It inspired me not only on a creative level, but also spiritually."  Marc and Vera made a pilgrimage through England beginning with Stonehenge, and ending at the tip of Cornwall visiting and photographing many Megalithic and ancient monuments.

In 1981 he came in contact with the Tibetan spiritual teacher Namkhi Norbu Rinpoche, teaching Dzogchen (the direct path ).  As a result of this fortuitous meeting, Marc saw a way to combine spiritual development with creative pursuits.  Inspired as he was by the practices of Dzogchen (which he could actually see as paintings), he produced a series of works directly based on the rinpoche¹s teachings, in the form of Mandallas and Thankas. The paintings were exhibited in Holland and Italy.

In 1988  he traveled to India and Nepal, where he visited many Tibetan communities in order to learn more about their painting techniques. In the north of India he met Tenzin Lopen Namdak, a master of the Dzogchen Bön tradition (the early shamanistic religion of Tibet), and thereby became involved in Shamanism, which he then incorporated into his paintings.  Quite obviously, these were very fruitful encounters.

In 1996 he went back to America for a visit, after having lived in Europe for 23 years.  While traveling through the Southwest, he was inspired by the many cave paintings, petroglyphs and pictographs on the canyon walls, and made numerous drawings and photographs.  He would later use these as themes for a new body of work, which he calls the Shaman series.  The paintings in this series were made between 1996 and 2000; they are done with acrylic paints on canvas and display a keen interest in new materials.  (he was one of the first artists in New York to experiment with acrylics.)  He commenced by working with black-light sensitive luminous paint, which lent itself perfectly to the theme and simultaneously created a new challenge:  "Like making two paintings at the same time." Each painting must not only work with the light on, but in the dark, as well. Sometimes it's  two separate paintings in one!

Iin1999 he began a new painting, "Cochiti," a two-meter canvas inspired by a panel he had seen in Cochiti, New Mexico, and asked a friend if he would video the process from start to finish.  This resulted in a 22-minute  film entitled Cochiti, which the Amsterdam Arts Channel has scheduled  to coincide with his next exhibition in the city. 

With the new millennium  approaching, his work changed course yet again, reviving his boyhood interest in space and astrology, while also venturing into astronomy.  In January 2000, he started on another theme, Space and the Universe.  These paintings first on paper, and later on canvas present an entire series of nebulae and star fields.  What makes them particularly unusual is that they glow in the dark!

2008-2009 At the moment Marc has been working for an exhibition of photographs he has made over the last twenty-five years in England, France and Holland, of Megalithic Stone circles, Standing stones, dolmens and Hunebedden (Dutch Megalithic burial sites). Printed on watercolor paper. That will soon open in Amsterdam. He is also working on plans, drawings and designs for several Earthworks, having been inspired by early ancient astronomical sites and monuments.