Richard Moon, 'Kin'

About

Wyer Gallery is delighted to present Richard Moon's second UK solo show. In Kin, Moon continues to explore our relationship with the uncanny in an impressive new series of paintings that play with the re-contextualisation and manipulation of anachronistic imagery.
In past work, Moon has depicted a bizarre world of starlet pin-ups, androgynous waifs, and mysterious musicians. Here, in Kin, he introduces us to a clan of ageing spinster types, dubious royalty, debutantes, sportsmen and 'storybook' children. In meeting this strange crew, Moon wants us to become uncomfortable. Queenie's spinsterish attire, for instance, ostensibly marks her out as a harmless Home Counties stereotype yet, unmasked by the artist, she exudes all the villainy and menace of a fairytale felon. And Nefertiti is in possession of a set of looks so at odds with her famous namesake that her winning expression inspires affection and aversion simultaneously. This duality is central to their success: they are both blood and other, known and unknown, beautiful and peculiar.

His paintings are derived first from small-scale collages made from different found, or personally photographed images, the majority of which come from daguerreotypes or old magazines from the '40's, '50's. By splicing backgrounds and body-parts Moon creates incongruous juxtapositions: the face of a dead boy from a Victorian mortuary image, for instance, with the sun worshiping body of a healthy young girl. He then distorts or extends certain features to hint at uncertain associations and uncomfortable new realities, before squaring-up in the old fashioned method to much larger-scale paintings on canvas. Through this process a documentary photograph or mass produced image may transcend its original incarnation to become imbued with the magical elements of fairy-tale or folklore. And, by bringing a distinctly contemporary technique to paintings whose subjects adopt strangely contrived or out-moded poses, Moon maintains a synthesis of past and present that causes his subjects to inhabit an illusory world between what the viewer knows to exist and that which dwells in fantasy.

In creating new histories for his paintings' characters, Moon becomes a teller of tales. However, he teases his audience by withholding information and rationing the truth. He suggests intrigue, poses problems and denies the solutions, leaving the viewer to deduce a narrative from the multiple meanings on offer.

Richard Moon [b.1971 England] graduated from the Royal Academy Schools in 2005, since when he has exhibited internationally. Since his first solo exhibition with Wyer Gallery in 2006, Moon has had a second solo show in Germany; he has exhibited in group shows across Europe and America and has exhibited in the UK, at the Walker Art Gallery, as a John Moores 24 finalist. His work is in international collections including the Saatchi Collection.