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Photograph by Glynis Ford, London England
Michael G. Moore is featured on
Click
on the Image to View Larger
For information
on how to purchase a work of art, please contact the artist through
the "e-mail" link, or contact the gallery at info@nwlaartgallery.com.
 
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Paintings
from 2001-Present
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"Cut"
2006 18"x24" Casein, Acrylic
and Paper on Board
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"Hide
& Seek" 62"x62" Acrylic on Canvas 2006
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"Sunflower
Sadness No. 2: For Leland Strebeck" 2005
18"x24"
Casein, Acrylic and Paper on Board
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"Sunflower
Sadness No 3: For Mother" 2005
18"x24"
Casein, Acrylic and Paper on Board
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"Sleeping"
69"x59" Acrylic on Canvas 2005
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"Blue" 70"x60"
Acrylic
on Canvas 2005
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"Flesh"
62"x62" Acrylic on Canvas 2005
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"Fallen"
(Diptych) Acrylic on Canvas each
panel 30"x41"
2005
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"Viciosos"
(and detail) Acrylic on Canvas 62"x62"
2005
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"Alfred,
Charlie, and Me" Acrylic
on Canvas 67"x59" 2004
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"Torn"
Acrylic on Canvas 62"x62"
2004
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"Masquerade" Casein on
Board 40"x40"
2003
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"Opus Odium" Casein on
Board 36"x36"
2003
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"Something Strangely
Familiar" Casein on
Board 36"x36"
2002
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"Eviscerate" Casein on
Board 18"x24"
2001
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"Iconoclast IX:XI"
Casein on Board
18"x24" 2001
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"Primordial" Casein on
Board 18"x24" 2001
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"Aggrieve"
Casein on board 18"x24" 2002
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"Mnemonic"
Casein on board 18"x24" 2002
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"Sunflower Sadness"
Casein on Board
18"x24" 2002
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"Trapped in the
Darkness of a Human
World" Casein on Board
18"x24" 2002
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"Big Truth" Casein on
Board 18"x24"
2002
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"Boxed In" Casein on
Board 18"x24"
2002
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"Phrenetic"
Casein on board 18"x24" 2002
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"Agitate"
Casein on Board 18"x24" 2002
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Photograph by David
Nelson
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Artist gives local talent a world stage
Shreveport artist Michael G. Moore poses in front of an incomplete
72 inch-by-72 inch acrylic on canvas painting. (Shane Bevel/The Times)
More information
See some of Michael G. Moore's artwork
at:
Works on paper at Prima Tazza, 8835 Line Ave., Feb. 14-March
11.
Large canvases at Café Des Amis in Breaux Bridge from May 5-June
25.
Northwest Louisiana Art Gallery (www.nwlaartgaller.com).
By
Jennifer Flowers
jenniferflowers@gannett.com
Whether
it's a lavish arts council event or a shoestring-budget art show, you can bet on
catching Michael G. Moore in the crowd.
And it's not just because he's an
easy one to spot with his curly, 13-inch beard.
If it's art and it's in
Shreveport, he's all over it. Ask him to name his favorite artists, and he'll
list off a who's who of local talent.
Moore is a notable cheerleader for
the local arts, especially since he created his online Northwest Louisiana Art
Gallery in 2002 to showcase area artists in a city with few walls to accommodate
work and in a state where bigger scenes like New Orleans dominate the spotlight.
Now that the site is an online gallery for more than 40 local artists, Moore
hopes to expand online the gallery into a physical space.
And the Web
site was responsible for Moore's own foray into the international arts scene.
The painter and sculptor showed his art in the 2003 Biennale Internazionale
dell'Arte Contemporanea in Florence, Italy, as well as the Woburn Gallery in
London, after he was discovered through his site.
Despite the
international exposure, Moore, 43, is not moving from Shreveport anytime soon,
citing love for both the city's easygoing pace and homegrown arts
scene.
QUESTION: How'd you get into visual art?
ANSWER: I pretty
much have always been interested in creating my own art. I used to play with
coloring books a lot and I also would draw on blank pieces of paper. I've kind
of blended those two now. My art now has a distinct outline. I've kind of gone
back to designing a canvas with a black line as if it were a paint-by-number or
a coloring book.
Q: Are there any recurring themes in your
work?
A: I've always been interested in religion. And all my art really
deals with personal issues and things that I've gone through in my life and
things I'm currently going through. "» I'm bipolar so I deal a lot with mental
illness in my work. I'm very vocal about being bipolar and it makes many people
uncomfortable to talk about it, but I think that different illnesses need to be
talked about more. It's something people don't need to be uncomfortable with.
It's not different form being diabetic, for instance.
Q: What's your most
recent stylistic development?
A: I've become more abstract in my work now
so I'm focusing on how the patterns fit, the patterns of life, and sort of the
makeup of mankind and emotion. Lately, because I'm working so large, I've been
using acrylic on canvas, but for a long time I worked with casein "» it's very,
very rich in color and it's safer than using oils because you don't have the
fumes and so forth. I like it over acrylic because the color is more vibrant
than acrylic.
Q: What makes you want to stay in Shreveport?
A:
What's been frustrating for so long is the idea that in order to become
successful in visual art, one must leave because it's very limited as far as
gallery representation. As far as visual art, there's not a whole lot the
artists can pull from, so the artists leave. That's my goal now, to become more
successful and stay in Shreveport. If we can keep a lot of talented artists here
in Shreveport, it's just a better place to live.
Q: Tell me about your
body art.
A: I'm always going through phases where I'm trying to identify
myself, and physical appearance is always something I've played with. Right now
I've got this beard that's at least 13 inches. I've got facial piercings and I'm
in a position where I can trade art with tattoos so now I collect tattoos. I'm
kind of going with a poisonous theme, like bugs that sting and snakes that are
poisonous. I have coral snakes, bees and I have a brown recluse spider on the
back of my head. Right below that is a yellow jacket.
Q: What is it about
art that brings you fulfillment?
A: It's a therapeutic thing. It's a
feel-good thing, a sense of accomplishment to take something from blankness to a
completed piece, to create with wood a sculpture or a piece of cardboard a
texture. Everything in life has artistic qualities. I like to approach life as
art.
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Prima Tazza Coffee House, Shreveport,
Louisiana, February 14—March 11, solo exhibition “About Face”
Below are a few of the pieces
featured in this exhibition--works on
paper and cardboard |
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Essay for "About Face"
The Tell-Tale Art of Michael G. Moore
By Michael Parker
Before returning to Shreveport several months ago, I was serendipitously put in
touch with Michael G. Moore, the hardest-working ambassador of the northwest
Louisiana arts scene. I immediately felt a rapport, appreciating his talents
for bringing together disparate creative individuals, curating shows, finding
exhibit spaces, organizing media coverage. That said, it is a pleasure to
finally experience a body of work by Michael G. Moore the artist, appreciating
purer creativity that informs all the other activities. Seeing these faces, knowing that they have
been a part of Moore's art for many
years, seeing more recent canvases and how this figure continues to appear, one
can tell it is an image of great significance. There is the calm, laconic
expression, belied by the left eye, which retains its shockingly large size
through different permutations of color. The eye, the most important tool in the visual artist's repertoire, always alert? Crazed?
Deformed, perhaps by something it has seen? That eye--in that face.
I believe a key to understanding the eye, the face, and the
art of Michael G. Moore lies in his mental condition, affected by bipolar
disorder. I do not discuss it lightly, knowing full well that the mentally ill
artist, like the alcoholic artist, is enough of a cliché that the condition can
become an imprisoning prism for both artist and viewer. But Moore's
candid refusal to either fetishize or bury his condition allows for a deeper
and, I feel, more mature discussion of its effect on his art. When asked in a
recent interview about recurring themes in his art, Moore
responds “I'm very vocal about being bipolar and that makes many people
uncomfortable to talk about it, but I think that different illnesses need to be
talked about more..It's not different from being diabetic, for instance.”
(Shreveport Times, 2/4/05).
I would speculate that the figure with the enlarged left eye is Moore's
representation of his bipolar disorder, constantly recurring through his artistic
and everyday life. The figure also recalls the murder victim from Edgar Allan
Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart," an old man, one of whose eyes resembled
that of a vulture-a pale blue eye, with a film over it." The narrator bears no animosity to the old
man, has no desire to rob him. He is merely a madman who has focused on the eye
as the source of his trouble and has resolved in the first two paragraphs to
kill the man. He succeeds, but is eventually undone by the beating of the dead
man's heart, which proves unbearable while speaking to the police dispatched to
investigate the man's disappearance.
Poe's narrator goes to great lengths trying to convince us
of the soundness of his faculties, describing the murder itself in meticulous,
obsessive detail, convinced of the utter rationality of his actions in classic
"he doth protest too much" fashion. Moore,
of course, has found more productive ways to come to terms with his mental
illness, with the vulture eye of his old man, and we, appreciating this
exhibit, are richer for it. The figure still appears in some wonderful recent canvases, sharing the stage with other
imagery, sometimes seeming to dissolve, but never completely gone. Some of
these canvases will be exhibited later this year, and I think we are very fortunate
to be able to see the narrative of a fine artist unfold in this fashion.
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Michael Moore with Noma
& Chris Fowler-Sandlin at Cafe Des Amis, Breaux Bridge
View Image: Michael, Noma
& Chris and Michael's paintings in background
Noma and Chris Fowler-Sandlin were
residents of Baton Rouge for years. And Michael Moore is one of their best
friends. Thus they were destined to support Michael at his Cafe Des Amis
reception in Breaux Bridge.
Said Noma, "Michael's big paintings look really good at Cafe Des Amis,
which is like an old general store or something. Cynthia Breaux has a big
following of patrons who trust her judgment. His work, being so modern,
juxtaposed against the barn-like environment, really shines. The food and the
staff rock, too."
They continued on I-10 West: "Baton Rouge was great fun. We saw Liquidrone
with their dancers and clowns, etc, at a venue in BR called SOGO Live. It's a
huge place and the audience was small. Broke my heart, but they always put
their hearts into the show regardless."
Mark Charleville and Lilly
Daigle at the Cafe des Amis reception for paintings by Michael G Moore
View Image: Mark Charleville,
Lilly Daigle, Michael Moore
Mark Charleville and Lilly Daigle are
Shreveporters who originally hailed from South of Voodoo. If you know
Charleville's art,
you know his affinity for the bayou country. Said Mark, "We absolutely
weren't going to miss seeing the Breaux Bridge reaction to Michael Moore's
paintings."
Michael G Moore and Cynthia
Breaux at Cafe Des Amis, Breaux Bridge
View Image: MichaelAndCynthia
Cynthia Breaux is proprietor of Cafe des
Amis, Breaux Bridge. Michael G Moore's paintings fit her space well, said Noma.
Cafe Des Amis is part of a small
Dickie & Cynthia Breaux empire, according to their web site. "Their
restoration of the historic building which houses the restaurant and overnight
guest cottages has enlivened the Breaux Bridge main street. Their preservation
efforts have been written about in national and international food and travel
publications."
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Tuesday, May 3, 2005
Michael G. Moore
"There and
Back" the visual art of Michael G. Moore
May 03 — Jun 25
Held
over through July 16
Art show at Cafe Des Amis, Breaux Bridge, Louisiana
Michael G. Moore will have a solo show of his work dated from 1997-2005
at Cynthia and Dickie Breaux's world famous Cafe Des Amis in Breaux Bridge,
Louisiana. There will be a reception for the artist on May 5 at Cafe des Amis
from 6-8PM--open to the general public. Michael has shown internationally at
the Biennale Internazionale Dell’ Arte Contemporanea in Florence, Italy, and at
the Woburn Gallery in London, as well as in the US. He has also donated a
piece of art to the LPB Art & Travel Auction which will take place on June 4
(Preview Party) and 5th (On-air Auction) 2005.
http://www.cafedesamis.com/index.html
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Living
Virtual gallery to shift dimensions at coolspace
August 2, 2005
If you goWHAT: Northwest Louisiana Art Gallery.
WHEN: A free opening reception will be held from 7 to 9 p.m.
Thursday. WHERE: coolspace at artspace, 710 Texas St. ADMISSION: free,
adults; $5, children. Hours are 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday through Wednesday, 10
a.m.-9 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 1-5 p.m. Sunday. For more information,
call artspace at 673-6535. MORE INFO: Check out area artists at the Northwest
Louisiana Art Gallery, located virtually at www.nwlaartgallery.com.
Related news from the Web
Latest headlines
by topic:
• Shreveport,
LA
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• Shreveport
Metro
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City, LA
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Powered by Topix.net By Jennifer
Flowers jenniferflowers@gannett.comMichael
G. Moore's online gallery, which represents more than 60 area artists, gets 500
visitors a day. But the tricky part, he says, is finding a place where
the works on display can be viewed the way they were intended to be seen: in the
flesh. "When you look at a piece online, you're not aware of how big it
is or what the texture is," said Moore, founder and Web master for the online
Northwest Louisiana Art Gallery. "When you have a physical show, you walk right
up to the piece and it's much more powerful." But work by area artists on
Moore's virtual gallery soon will live and breathe in an exhibit opening
Thursday in coolspace at artspace. This is the second exhibition ever hosted by
coolspace and also is the second time the virtual gallery's artists have shown
together physically. Moore is curator for the show that will represent
the work of close to 40 visual, performance, literary and multimedia artists.
Long-established veteran artists such as painters Jerry Wray and Mary Sorrows
Hughes and photographer Neil Johnson will show their work alongside young,
up-and-coming talent, including Jen Wasson, Joanna Tagert and Rachel
Stuart-Haas. "The only theme we have is group," he said. "I wanted
everybody who was involved in being in the Web site to be able to participate.
We just asked everybody to send in a couple of images and I would choose which
ones would be in the show, and nobody was turned away." Also in the
exhibit are multimedia artists such as Michael Harold and Dan Garner, who
incorporate video installations into their work. Harold's multimedia
project is titled "Palindrome," which consists of a painting suspended so it
hangs face-down 3 feet above the floor as if it's floating in air. Underneath it
lies a mirror, which allows viewers to see the painting with its reflection. A
computer and a projector display artwork made by new media artists onto a window
of artspace, and a reverse image can be seen from the street. "I haven't
shown in Shreveport in many years because there was no venue for it," Harold
said. "It's not commercial, nobody's going to buy it and it's a short-term deal.
You put it up and it's gone. I'm really grateful to have the chance to do
this." Michael Parker, an arts enthusiast who also works part time at
artspace, is looking forward to seeing one exhibit represent many styles and
media. "I'm really excited about it being a group show of the Northwest
Louisiana Art Gallery artists because there's so much tremendous talent right
now," Parker said. "I just think it's going to be a great window into what's
happening right now." The NWLA Art Gallery started in October 2002 and is
in the process of becoming a nonprofit organization. The grassroots group, which
now has a board of directors, hopes to eventually find a permanent venue for the
artists it represents and sponsor traveling exhibits. NWLA artists
exhibited for the first time ever in February 2004 at Centenary College's Turner
Art Center. The number of members has nearly doubled from about 35 artists to
more than 60. While the virtual art gallery still feels like a nomad in
the three-dimensional world, coolspace as a venue also is jumping around. Having
opened in the basement of the Shreveport Regional Arts Council's year-old,
21,000 square-foot artspace, it now has manifested itself on the second floor of
the building. Moore is excited to see the exhibit open on the well-lit,
spacious second floor. "I'm really excited that the exhibit is going to
be at artspace," he said. "Artspace is still young. For artists, I think it's a
good opportunity to be in a show in a place where there's
buzz."
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©The Shreveport Times
August 2, 2005 |
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Copyright(c) 2002 Northwest
Louisiana Art Gallery All rights reserved.
mailto:info@nwlaartgallery.com
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