Colin Moore
I was born on the Clyde Coast of Scotland in 1949. My earliest memories are of the sea, of the harbour where my great-grandfather was the pilot, of the sky and the ever-changing light on the Firth of Clyde. Encouraged by my great aunts' stories of my sea-faring ancestors, I was sure I’d be a sailor. Instead I got to be an architect and now I’m an artist. But there is still time.
Some of my pictures are suggested by places, by the beaches and harbours, towns and villages scattered around the coast of the British Isles. Some are a boy's celebration of boats, their canny construction and effortless grace. Others bring back memories; of trips to Glasgow Docks in the 'fifties, busy with the stuff of empire; of summer days on the decks of fishing boats learning the doggerel rhymes that sailors use to sort out right from left; of gales of wind and spindrift on the shore.
I paint and make prints, usually relief prints, often working in series in which the paintings and prints inform each other. The work is figurative, abstracted in colour and line to focus expression and invite an emotional response from the viewer. Composition is often both tectonic and dynamic. I mean I build it, bolt it together, then it moves. In the landscapes, I try for a sense of space through graphic rather than topographical means, through layers rather than perspectives and instead of the view, you are offered the feeling of the place or perhaps of the drama to be found in the lives of the ordinary people who live there.
I like making relief prints, linos and woodcuts. They suit my style of mixing areas of flat colour with lines. When you make a line in a relief print, you cut the material away from both sides of it, so you get two chances to fill the line with expression. And when you make an edition, you get to keep one for yourself, another page in the story of your life.
C.V
RECENT EXHIBITIONS
February 2008 Royal Society of Painter Printmakers, Originals 08
Mall Gallery, London
December 2007 Winter show, John Green Fine Art, Glasgow
June 2007 Summer Show, John Green Fine Art, Glasgow
May 2007 One man show, Darcy Gallery, Cheltenham
April 2007 Glasgow Art Fair,
January 2006 Group Show, D’Arcy Gallery, Cheltenham
December 2006 Great Art Fair, London
December 2006 Winter Show, John Green Fine Art, Glasgow
October 2006 Affordable Art Fair, London
September 2006 Group Show, Leaf Gallery, Isle of Man
April 2006 Glasgow Art Fair
February 2006 Group Show, D’Arcy Gallery, Cheltenham
December 2005 Winter Show, John Green Fine Art, Glasgow
November 2005 Brighton Art Fair
November 2005 Battersea Contemporary Art Fair
July 2005 Summer show, Thompsons Marylebone, London
May 2005 Summer Show, John Green Fine Art, Glasgow
December 2004 Winter show, Thompsons Marylebone, London
October 2004 Royal Society of Marine Artists annual show, Mall Galleries, London
September 2004 Autumn show, Thompsons Marylebone, London