The contemporary artist Andy Moses produces abstract paintings that are inspired by the natural rhythms of the landscape. He once said: “I want them to refer to landscape without becoming landscape.” This is a constant tension that has shaped his body of work, which pushes at the traditional boundaries of the genre.
Moses was born in Los Angeles in 1962, and studied at the prestigiousCalifornia Institute of the Arts, where he benefited from the tutorship of Michael Asher, John Baldessari, and Barbara Kruger. After graduating, he moved to New York where he developed his trademark style of pouring the paints directly onto the canvas and tilting it to shape their flow.
In the year 2000, after a highly successful two decades that resulted in several national and international exhibitions, Moses moved back to Venice Beach, Los Angeles. Since then, he has continued to explore the question of where representation ends and where abstraction begins in his vibrant and expressive paintings.
Although Moses allows the pigments to flow freely on the canvas, the colours are highly controlled to create wonderfully evocative suggestions of sky, water, and earth. This marriage of spontaneity and control creates a captivating effect and instantly speaks to the viewer of the beauty and wonder of the natural world.
The William Turner Gallery in Santa Monica, California, will be presenting a new exhibition of Moses’ recent paintings from 9 September to 11 November. The gallery describes this as “an excitingly ambitious new body of work, showcasing an artist fully engaged and at the height of his creative process.”
If you are not fortunate enough to be in California this autumn, then you could always order a stunning high quality framed or unframed Andy Moses print from FRMD Clapton.