Artist Spotlight: Kurt Moyer
“Working from nature is full of opportunities and gifts. At some moments the spots of color can even seem to float in mid air creating an all-over abstraction, or the light shifts to reveal a new pattern among the trees - everything contributing to the process of making a painting.”
- Kurt Moyer
“From the beginning, I’ve wanted to make something beautiful out of my experiences, something to share with other people. For many years this meant painting landscapes and depicting the nuances of light and color. These new abstract paintings still concern the light and my experiences in particular places. But now, without realism, they’re free to become something new. I feel I’m building a painting in real-time instead of making a recording of the past.
I’ve always admired Cezanne’s bathers––particularly the late ones––because he was able to transfer the sensuality of the nude away from the narrative and onto the overall sensuality of the canvas. Gottfried Boehm described this in his article, A Paradise Created by Painting: Observations on Cezanne’s Bathers: ‘...What we see in the Bathers is not an Arcadia that is independent of the picture; instead, the picture itself appears Arcadian. It is the organization of all the elements, components and parts, the approximation of bodies and objects, that together determine the experience.” I think this is what Cezanne meant when he said that ‘art is a harmony parallel to nature.’
“Today I go into the forest looking for the kind of beauty that floods my senses.”
- Kurt Moyer
Abstract painting really can be a vehicle for transcendence, for both painter and viewer. Many roads lead to great works of art, but if you don’t feel something in its presence it has little value. My personal connection can be about internal visual travel, in the sense that I revisit old memories, but I want to emphasize that the construction of the painting is completely about the physical relationship of color and space…My desire for this summertime feeling seems inexhaustible, and though I’ve been trying for many years, I don’t feel like I am ever really satisfied.” - Kurt Moyer
Kurt Moyer grew up near French Creek State Park, a woodland of over 7,000 acres. Years later, this connection with nature continues to be the focus in Moyer’s painting. Kurt Moyer is currently based near Rochester, New York. He is a graduate of Kutztown University and paints full-time in addition to attending artist residencies and programs on a regular basis throughout the United States, Italy and beyond. He has had five solo shows with Gross McCleaf Gallery and has been featured in solo and group exhibitions at other galleries and museums in the region. His work is in both public and private collections.