Moore balance
The Herald Sun, 19 September, 2008
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David Moore's work is an
antidote to fast-paced life,
writes Mischa Merz.
David Moore's paintings carry
the kind of balance, purity and
calm that French modernist
Henri Matisse aimed for in his
own work.
Matisse famously said he wanted his
work 'freed from a subject matter that is
disconcerting or too attention-seeking'.
'In my paintings,' he said, 'I wish to
create a spiritual remedy, similar to a
comfortable armchair . . .'
And though Matisse's aspirations were
later mocked by those who thought art's
job was to shake people out of their
comfort zone, you can't go past a bit of
purity and balance as an antidote to
modern life.
Moore, the son of Australian tonal
realist painter and teacher Graham
Moore, has been trying to attain that
balance during more than 40 years of
practice. And in his show at Chrysalis
Gallery, he seems to have cracked it.
Moore has been through various phases
and turned his hand to many styles,
including 10 years as an abstract painter.
But he returned to observing the natural
world again in the 1990s.
The more than 50 still life, landscape
and figure paintings, mostly small gems,
shine quietly with a seductive palette and
delicious, textural brushwork. They are
simple, painterly statements that can look
almost photographic from a distance and
abstract at close range.
The landscapes transform the chaotic
clutter of the Australian bush into a
perfect balance of muted greys.
Others capture the areas of
Melbourne's east—Yarra Glen, Eltham,
Cottles Bridge—when the afternoon
shadows are long and evocative.
And just like Matisse, Moore has
chosen simple, everyday subjects for his
still-life explorations because he wants to
be able to express a feeling through the
paint rather than through the object itself.
'I generally paint in short bursts,' he
says, 'But there is a lot of time invested in
the feeling that I want, so when it comes
to painting objects and setting them up I
prefer to paint everyday things.'
Though Moore's father came from a
conservative Melbourne group of
painters who held to the teachings of Max
Meldrum, the current show seems to owe
more to Europeans like Giorgio Morandi,
Nicolas de Stael and Ewan Uglow.
Moore, 61, says his father's work
became safer as he got older, but early on
he had a loose and relaxed style that broke
away from the tight, 19th-century still-life
tradition.
Though his father and his group were
often dismissed as conservative, Moore
says they admired artists who broke away
from traditions, such as Clarice Beckett
with her foggy renditions of Melbourne
and maverick British impressionist James
Abbott McNeill Whistler.
MOORE began his art studies at
Ealin gArt School in London in 1966,
when his father decided to try to make a
career in Britain.
When the family returned he studied
drawing at the National Gallery School,
graduating from Swinburne in 1970. He
was a recipient of the A.M.E. Bale
Residential Scholarship and was taught by
another much-derided conservative,
Archibald Prize winner William Dargie.
Like his father, Moore also teaches. He
says his father never commented on his
work.
'He was a bit removed and aloof,' he
says. 'But my mother thought everything
I did was wonderful. I've just quietly
made my own way and am very grateful
for what my father gave me. He always
told me to use restraint, to wait for the
right light, to take time approaching the
subject and to not seek notoriety.