Richard Moon

Moon’s work re-contextualizes various found imagery, taken largely from early photographic sources and re-interpreted in oil paint or etching through the means of preparatory collage. Images that are distanced by time and corrupted through manipulation produce an effect both of familiarity and uncertainty. The association with photography brings with them effects of loss, longing and nostalgia that is often experienced when looking at such imagery.

 

Incorporating this source material as above creates a dialogue with the history of collage in fine art. It also influences the poses, facial expressions, colours and compositional devices of the work. The long exposure times of Daguerreotypes, the muted monochrome of early photography, photomontage compositions and the vibrant colours of early 20th century portrait photographers such as Nickolas Muray have all contributed to his decision making processes. Yet his work itself is not anachronistic; on the contrary, the use of outmoded imagery in his work belies its very modernity. Contemporary popular culture is full of repetitions, revisions and re-interpretations of past imagery and culture, but since it all appears mingled together with new trends driven forward by technological innovations, the result is a strange hybrid of sources somewhat akin to Freud’s the Uncanny.

 

It is through these diverse influences that he is able to produce an appearance of narrative, yet I explain nothing. This invites the viewer to speculate and deduce their own interpretation of the work and the multiple meanings on offer.

Education

2002 – 2005 – The Royal Academy Schools, Post-graduate Diploma, Fine Art
1999 – 2002 – Camberwell College of Art, BA (hons) Degree, Painting (1st Class)
1998 – 1999 – Chelsea College of Art and Design, Portfolio Preparation

Solo Exhibitions

2012 Asa Nisi Masa, Rathbone Art Studios, London
2010 Plastic Time, Madder 139, London
2007 Kin, The Wyer Gallery, London
The Tower, Klinkhammer Projects, Dusseldorf
2006 New Paintings, The Wyer gallery, London

Group Exhibitions

2015 Reconstructed Mind, Skipwiths, London
2014 Chinese Whispers, Gallerie Nasty Alice, Eindhoven
DrAwn 2gether, Gig (Galerie I’m Gartenhaus), Munich
Summer Exhibition, The Royal Academy of Arts, London
Etchings, The Café Gallery, The Royal Academy of Arts, London
2013 Summer Exhibition, The Royal Academy of Arts, London
2011 Polemically Small, Orleans House Gallery, London
2009 New London School, Galerie Schuster, Berlin
2008 The Past is History (part 2), Changing Roles Gallery, Rome
The Past is History (part 1), Changing Role Gallery, Naples
New London School, Mark Moore Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
The Future Can Wait, Atlantis Gallery, London
2007 Figure, Sarah Myerscough Gallery, London
Salon Nouveau, Engholm Engelhorn Galerie, Vienna
2006 New London Kicks I1, Wooster Projects, New York City
John Moores 24, finalist, The Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
The Celest Art Prize, finalist, The Truman Brewery, London
New London Kicks, Soho House, New York City
New Paintings, The Wyer Gallery, London

Awards

2006 Short-listed for John Moores 24
2006 Short-listed for Celeste Art Prize

Collections

The Saatchi collection, London; the Javier Baz collection, Denver; the Roger Taylor collection, London; the Paul and Alison Myners Collection, London

Publications (articles, reviews and interviews)

2011 Aesthetic Pathways (volume 2, number 1), Standing Grounded: Heidegger’s The Origin of the Work of Art and Contemporary Painting by Magdelena Wisnowska, p.69 to 89
2011 Notion Magazine (Issue no. 50), Dialogues (Richard Moon), p.16
2009 My Name is Charles Saatchi and I am an Artoholic, Published by Phaidon, p.161 & 162
2009 The Evening Standard, Confessions of an Art Collector (interview with Charles Saatchi), August 2nd 2009, p.18
2009 AXA Art Review, Collecting the Contemporary for Tomorrow (interview with Alison Myners) p.6 & 8
2009 The Guardian Guide, Exhibitions (review of The Golden Record Exhibition, Lincoln) 21st to 27th March 2009, p.39
2003 The Evening Standard Metro Life Magazine, Art (review of Future Map 02 Exhibition, at the London Institute Gallery, p.55