Aris Moore

 

Aris Moore's drawings are a bit like collage and it's no surprise to discover that she does a lot of that as well. Her endless fascination is the face. Each piece is a portrait, although not in the proper sense. These are not real people. They are invented. They are cobbled together from disparate elements; a mouth, eyes, etc.,. The disjointed and disconnected nature of their features lends them a curious vulnerability, and a peculiar kind of life. It's as if they desperately wanted to be real, like Pinocchio. Sometimes the amalgamation of features can take on a shocking aspect, akin to characters in a freak show, which we are drawn toward out of morbid fascination. But even then there is deep sympathy in the portrayal. In Aris Moore's work, that line between real and unreal is a vast twilight zone in which she creates an endless cast of characters that all seem to have their own stories to tell, as rich and complex, as sad and sorrowful, or as full of joy and simple pleasures, as any of our own.

Sometimes the artist will experiment with simple variations. For example, take a head of hair and toss in  the facial features in various combinations and styles and see what happens. Somehow each one begins to speak. Here's a terriffic example below. And this is just the tip of an iceberg. Go visit her blog and just spend some time scrolling back in time through her enormous body of work at peekadoo.blogspot.com

And congratulations to the artist for being included in the latest edition of New American Paintings.