Leah Moyer

Nearly everything I make is mimetic, a representation of something recognizable and really quite ordinary. But perhaps there is a bright and vibrant humor restraining an inevitable somber just under the surface of the drawing, much like a drowning, sputtering, and singing cat. Let me explain:

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 and emotional art has pervaded creative minds of the young and old since the beginning of time, although 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 adult maturity needed to conquer the mundane malice of age.

That being said, in seemingly stark incongruity to the aforementioned pleasing archetypes and gorgeous scenery of enjoyable artistic expression, a different drive to create that has always drawn me in was what I just described as its philisophical opposite: stark bleak works that express (and impress) the incommunicable nature of living and hurting to the viewer. This art has always existed in every form to express our very natural experience of terrifying grief in response to the individual's experience of living and the eventual inevitability of loss. We try to avoid these feelings, but I've found it much easier to wade in 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 the light. Are these concepts truly opposites then?

And so I do what I can and what I want; I play with rhythm, line, mark, and color; playing with how much is revealed, how much is hidden. I play with endless possibilities of visual subjects and mediums and contradicting feelings. It is my identity, experiences, eye, interests, opinions, and ultimately my outer and inner looking that is harbored in spots of unmediated oil paint on canvas or precise marks on paper. Balancing these contradictory values transfers a messy and confusing concept, yet a malleable one, holding visual and psychological appeal in the artist and viewer alike.