8 Questions with Emily Moore - Magazine Issue03

Emily Moore is a painting artist featured in Al-Tiba9 magazine ISSUE03, interviewed by Mohamed Benhadj about her art.

Born in 1984, Aberdeen, Lives and works in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Emily Moore graduated with a first-class degree from Edinburgh College of Art in 2013. Following graduation Moore was shortlisted as one of ten finalists for the Griffin Art Prize, appearing in an exhibition at The Griffin Gallery in London, where she was awarded the Griffin Art Prize People‘s Choice Award and a sponsored artist award. Moore has shown her work internationally exhibiting at the Annual Royal Scottish Academy. She won the Royal Scottish Academy Guthrie Award, shortlisted as one of twenty-six global finalists for the Rise Art Prize and a finalist for the Zealous Emerge Art Awards.

Please describe the intention behind your art. How do you successfully express this intention?

I never think of my work as having an intention. My photographs are often the starting point for my paintings. Each body of work is often documentation of my experiences and trips, the creative process allowing me to recall each place and combine them to create new, anonymous landscapes. I hope to develop a sense of balance within each piece.

What kind of education or training helped you develop your skillset?

I took six years out following school, and on deciding to apply for art school, I enrolled in a Portfolio- building a course where I spent eight months creating a diverse body of work from painting, drawing/life-drawing to design and sculpture. I then spent four years studying at Edinburgh College of Art, including a semester at Massachusetts College of Art and Design. I specialized in painting but also did quite a lot of screen printing during my final two years. 

What is your creative process like?

The process is a significant part of my practice. I developed my painting process after a lot of experimentation during art school. I loved the precise application of paint/medium obtained through screenprinting and developed a similar technique to build up layers in my paintings using masking tape and scalpel. I work directly onto birch plywood panels, occasionally leaving areas of the raw wood exposed. I often use an overhead projector for the intricate, detailed images, which are then drawn and cut-out by hand. Quite a laborious process, but it allows me to combine precise, detailed layers over the rough, painterly ones. 

The materials I typically use are acrylic, gesso, graphite pencil, enamel, and varnish. I always work using acrylic mixed with gesso as I prefer the surface quality of the paint, and it's a lot easier to sand down, without the plastic-like finish you often get with acrylic paint. In contrast, I love using gloss enamel or varnish on the final layers of a piece and have recently started incorporating spray paint and oil pastels. 

What visual references do you paint upon in your work? 

The landscape is my primary source of inspiration. I'm particularly interested in the patterns and forms found within the natural environment and the different architectural structures which inhabit them. Mountains will always hold an allure, and also, I enjoy painting them. I think a lot of the influence comes from my winter seasons: after leaving school I spent six winter seasons snowboarding in France and California which had a lasting impact. My first two seasons, in particular, were spent living in this 1960s concrete, purpose-built resorts in the Alps. It's such a striking environment: massive man-made structures in contrast with the stark, mountainous landscape. During art school, I also spent time looking at the work of architects, particularly those associated with the post-war modernist movement and artists that were similarly influenced by them. 

The most exciting/challenging project you worked for?

I enjoyed working towards my debut solo exhibition in Edinburgh last November. I visited Iceland the year before, so I had a lot of excellent source material to work from, and it was the largest body of work I've made to date. 

What are your upcoming projects?

At the moment, I have a few commissions to complete, and then I'm keen to start something completely new. I've been ready to move onto something different for a while now but had also wanted to complete a body of mountain paintings I'd been working on. Plus I've just moved studio, so I wanted to wait until that was out of the way. 

They say if you could be anything but an artist, don't be an artist. What career are you neglecting right now by being an artist?

That's a tough question to answer, who knows!? When I was younger I'd always wanted to work with animals. I spent my school work experience week at a veterinary practice but the reality didn't quite live up to my expectations. I'm sure there are a lot of jobs I would have been quite good at and enjoyed but nothing to compete with making art.

Lastly, do you have a message to Al-Tiba9 readers?

Thanks for reading! I'm always grateful for new connections, so feel free to reach out.