Claire Moore – The Packaging show

Primed and Packaged, Gayle, mixed media on paper, Claire Moore.

Three artists showed recently with a theme of Packaging at the Fort Gallery. (See previous post). I was in a hurry to get something written before the show ended, so posted their press release.  But I felt there was more to say, so here I am with a few more comments about Claire Moore’s work.

First of all, it’s a privilege as an artist to know her because she has this incredible ability to think outside of the box, to generate very original ideas. She can change from one medium to another without seeming to blink an eye. Yet it is all stamped with Moore’s personality- the various bodies of work that she creates all have a continuity of style. It’s simply inspiring.

In this show, she tackles the idea of packaging that evokes a sense of place.

Primed and Packaged – Kenojuak, mixed media on paper, 18×24, Claire Moore

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In “Primed and Packaged – Kenojuak”, a print maker is designing a stone lithograph; behind her, a repetitive pattern of the sailor from the Players cigarette packages forms a backgkround like wall paper. At the bottom of the image, there is a band of writing that says:

The story of the origins of the Cape Dorset printmaking co-operative has become almost legendary:

Osuitok Ipeelee, an established carver and sculptor and James Houston who went on to promote Inuit Art in all forms, were sharing a smoke  outside Houston’s tent on the land near cape Dorset. Ipeelee, who was carving a walrus tusk at the time, looked at the pack of Players cigarettes and asked, “doesn’t  the artist in the south not get tired painting the same little sailor over and over again?”

Unable to explain the printing process in Inuktituk. Houston took the relief carved tusk from Ipeelee,    mixed lamp soot and spit in his hand and spread it on the carving . He then made a crude print by pressing a piece of toilet paper onto the tusk. Ipeelee’s response on seeing the resultant image was , “We could do that,”

The first collection of Cape Dorset prints was released in 1959

Each of the other  Moore paintings in the exhibition recount some story redolent of time gone by, with the same general organization – a “wallpaper” of repeated packaging imagery and a friend’s face.

Primed and Packaged – Tom, Claire Moore, mixed media

In Primed and Packaged – Tom there is some delightfully loose drawing in the plaid shirt. The person in the portrait remembers hot days and her uncle taking her into a grocery store to buy ice cream bars.

Primed and Packaged – Cora, mixed media, 18 x 24 inches, Claire Moore

In Primed and Packaged – Cora  , an native child remembers being unconscious of her ethnic origins, how it confuses her own perception of self with the unrealistic “Indian” image on the Land of Lakes butter wrapping.

Primed and Packaged – Dyana, mixed media, 18x 24 inches, Claire Moore

Primed and Packaged – Dyana reminds the woman with a parrot of pleasant times with friends over a cup of spicy tea.

Each of these images (there were several more) has a different composition. The paintings are not cookie-cutter formulas. The drawings are freely done and specific. Each face has a personality much different from the next. They are lively drawings with a strong sense of tonal balance provided by the colour. All of these things are important to me in the appreciation of a painting.

Moore’s facility in drawing is underlined with the Kenojuak painting , with the foreshortening of the head that has been captured in a graceful pose. It’s not an easy one to portray. In each of the paintings, there is a good balance of the hand-drawn and the painted image in comparison to the appropriated packaging imagery. In each one, there is some informative drawing in the faces and then some bravura drawing that gives a sense rather than the specifics of the remainder of the image. This too makes for a good balance, focusing on what is important and letting the less important lay back in the  imagery.

If you would like to explore more of Claire Moore’s very interesting body of work, visit her website at http://clairemoore.ca/gallery/the_package_deal/

You will find an artist whose continuing theme is social responsibility and the welfare of humankind. You will find lots to explore in her previous galleries of her work.

Claire Moore lives and works in Surrey B.C.

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Packaging

This is our youngest gallery goer.  I think he had tasting on his mind!

He’s fascinated with the floor mats that Diana Durrand has contributed to this exhibition (Fort Gallery, April, 2012) on the theme of Packaging. Three artists, Durrand, Claire Moore and Jo-Ann Sheen have each explored current day packaging  with their different perspectives.

(The  press release was so well written that I am sharing it with you here. My comments on the show follow.)

It’s stuff we barely glance at before throwing it away: it’s the wrapping
around the real goods nestled inside, a nuisance factor in our daily lives that clogs
our recycling bins and landfills, a gorgeous distraction concocted by marketers to
lure us into the consumerist mindset.

For artists Claire Moore, Jo‐Ann Sheen and Diana Durrand commercial packaging in
all its gaudy, upscale, brash and crinkly forms has become the material of art in a
show called Package Deal at the Fort Gallery from April 18 to May 6, with a
reception April 21 from 3 to 5 p.m.

The three have approached their subject matter from different perspectives, but the
unifying theme is to find meaning beyond the obvious – and not so obvious –
commercial messaging in the plethora of package designs we are exposed to every
day.

Moore bases her works on the interiors of ‘informal settlement shacks’ from the
1980’s and 90’s in her homeland of South Africa. The shacks were often wallpapered
with the print run ends from packaging manufacturers.
“I became curious about the ability of a label or packaging to elicit emotion,
sentiment and memory and to evoke a specific time and place,” she said. “The
ubiquitous and everyday becomes significant and meaningful, and in the plethora of
visual signs around us we create personal connections.”

Sheen, a printmaker, used a process called collagraphy to re‐contextualize discarded
packaging materials so we can stop to look at them in a new way. “I have taken these
discarded items and changed their context, examining their materiality in a different
form,” she said. “They have been rescued from the recycling bin and transformed
into two dimensional images.”

Durrand has unfolded a ubiquitous fast food icon – the Macdonald’s French fry box –
and juxtaposed that image with the gorgeous designs of 17th Century Japanese
kimonos. “A recurrent theme in my art is the discovery of beauty in ordinary, even
discarded things,” she said. “I explore the relationships between design and beauty,
function and art, intent and subconscious outcomes.”

The Fort Gallery shows contemporary work and is located at 9048 Glover Road in Fort Langley.
It is open Wednesdays to Sundays from 12 to 5 p.m.
604‐688‐7411

http://www.fortgallery.ca