LEAH MOYER

I like to play with rhythm, line, mark, and color; playing with how much is revealed and how much is hidden. Theres endless possibilities of subjects and mediums and contradicting feelings to choose from. It is my identity, experiences, eye, interests, opinions, and outer and inner looking that dictates the movement of paint on canvas or abstract mark-making on paper.

I have always been intrigued by art that simply entertains and comforts the observer, a good example being animated films, illustrated childrens stories, cartoons, and even musicals. Bursting with eye-catching candy colors and casts of colorful characters, this loving art has pervaded creative minds since the beginning of time, though many choose to turn in disdain from childish things. They see our genetically coded need for play as a harmful distraction, something trivial that undermines the sober maturity needed to conquer the mundane malices of adulthood.

However, in stark contrast to "light" art, a different drive to create that has always intrigued me is its philisophical opposite: bleaker works that express (and impress) the incommunicable nature of living and hurting on the viewer. This art has also always existed in every form of artmaking we have to express our very natural experience of fear in response to the experience of living and its counterpart, death and loss. Most people do everything and anything to avoid these feelings, but I've found there's catharsis in feeling its honest presence when appropriate.

Thus, comes playful darkness, or on the contrary, dark but silly, play. The empty nothingness of everyday living doesn’t try to deny itself, but neither does beauty or humor. Must these concepts truly be opposites? Balancing these contradictory values in art can often be messy and confusing, but I find it's a concept worth exploring as it creates intense visual and psychological appeal for the artist and viewer alike.