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David Moore
Born in Salem, MA, David Moore’s reputation in Boston is built on exhibitions of glowing reductive paintings that have a beautiful nuanced surface. He earned his MFA degree in painting at Bard College, NY, where he also studied Theosophy, Sufism, music, photography, and the luminist paintings of the Hudson Valley. He has received residencies at the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Millay Colony, Blue Mountain Center, the Edward F. Albee Foundation in Montauk, NY, and the Ballinglen Art Center in Ballycastle, County Mayo, Ireland.
David’s musical experience has also influenced his paintings. For the past 35 years he has revived the lost art of playing the Musical Saw. He performs and records across the country, and has been featured at Boston Symphony Hall, on “The Today Show”, and NPR performing jazz, blues, folk, and alternative music.
During the late 1970’s and 1980’s David set out each day to paint the landscape and urban structures of New York and New England. He also painted politically charged themes such as the explosion of the space shuttle “Challenger” and the disaster at the Chernoble nuclear power plant. After completing a large commissioned mural for a prison education program, David then made a radical shift and turned to personal reinterpretations of nature in hidden and poetic ways. The paintings changed from representational scenes of urban structures, cloud formations, tree textures, and water studies, to paintings of abstract monochrome grids and curvilinear structures. Saturated color, obsessive linear markings, and glowing surfaces are essential to his concept of obsessive abstraction.
During the 1990’s David moved to New York City and created a large body of paintings, and gouache works on paper. His theme of “place” and his studies in microphotography are reflected in the abstract paintings and drawings entitled Dover Station, Hidden Cove, Skowhegan, Self Portrait, Freedom Point, Blue Mountain, Mystery Ride, Palm, and Playground.
In 1992 printmaking greatly influenced his painting. The repetitive process of editioning a print became an integral part of the serial nature of his work. The discipline of linear precision and surface preparations in etching were transferred to the oil painting’s surface. The intaglio print, “Dover Station”, pays tribute to an elevated subway landmark in Boston he painted for over six years. In the print “Dove Station”, pattern replaces perspective and equilibrium displaces vertigo. David returns to places of inspiration: Freedom N.H., Blue Mountain Lake, NY, and Montauk, NY, where he paints watercolors and gouaches, sometimes while floating about in his canoe to the sound of loons.
In 1999 David moved back to Boston. The daily ritual of “place” continues to inform his work. The series of abstractions, “Vibe” and “Twang”, synthesize his passion for musical performance and his sense of visual order. Microtonal nuances and rhythmic dynamics are echoed in his paintings. The“Pastoral” series was created on location in Taos New Mexico and in Freedom NH.
David’s work is inspired by music and nature. The paintings “Loon Lake”, “Convergence”, “Flip”, "Pulse", and "Flight" combine his highly detailed and repeated gesture with intense density, space, and high energy. In 2007 he received the prestigious Pollock/Krasner Award. His more recent works "Ceide Field" series are inspired by the landscape of Ireland while in residence at the Balleinglen Art Foundation, Ballycastle, County Mayo, and the landscape of Iceland as seen in the "Jokulsarlon" series.
Click on image for Thumbnail Gallery
2007 Pollock/Krasner Award recipient
Ballinglen I 42"x30" Oil on Linen
Installation
