BECKY MOON
STICKS AND STONES
Becky Moon
Sticks and Stones
April 4 - June 21, 2025
Bruno David Gallery
7513 Forsyth Boulevard Saint Louis, Missouri 63105, U.S.A. info@brunodavidgallery.com www.brunodavidgallery.com
Founder/Director: Bruno L. David
This catalogue was published in conjunction with the exhibition “Sticks and Stones” at Bruno David Gallery.
Editor: Bruno L. David
Catalogue Designer: Ashlynn Stocks
Designer Assistant: Claudia R. David
Printed in USA
All works courtesy of Becky Moon and Bruno David Gallery
Photographs by Bruno David Gallery
Cover image:
Mind made of wood, (detail) 2024
Acrylic on canvas
48 x 36 inches (121.92 x 91.44 cm)
Edition
Copyright ©2025 Becky Moon and Bruno David Gallery
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of Bruno David Gallery
CONTENTS AFTERWORD
BY BRUNO L. DAVID
CHECKLIST AND IMAGES OF THE EXHIBITION
BIOGRAPHY
AFTERWORD
BY BRUNO L. DAVID
I am pleased to present Sticks and Stones, an exhibition by Korea-born artist Becky Moon. This is the artist first solo exhibition with the gallery.
Sticks and Stones is a series of paintings that explore the themes of belief, tangibility, mass, and gravity. Moon believes there is nothing as everlasting as the invisible human mind. The mind is a refuge for those who long for a land they can never return to. Moon wants her paintings to be flag posts that remind the existence of the mind that it is real, alive, and persistent. Even when all is lost, the mind lives on
Moon comes from a half-North Korean and half-South Korean heritage. Growing up, she heard lively accounts from my grandparents about leaving everything North behind to escape war and violence. Their emigration made her question what remains, when everything physical perishes. She realized that the immaterial mind, preserved through love and blood, cannot be taken away. Consequently, she became immersed in depicting the existence of minds.
Therefore, Moon has been depicting the structure of the mind through arrangements of ordinary objects such as branches, stones, and snail shells. She builds the objects out of hundreds of small, squiggly brushstrokes made with meticulous dedication. Meticulousness is crucial because it slowly builds a fortress of reverence for everything the artist chooses to depict. The structures created by those objects celebrate their complexity and tenacity. In her stacked wood paintings like Going… going… gone!, a thin line of gravity holds the hundreds of tree branches together. Their balance shows the role of gravity, a force with qualities similar to belief. One small belief can hold numerous thoughts together.
Becky Moon graduated with a BFA in art with a second major in philosophy from Sam Fox School of Visual Arts - Washington University in St. Louis. She attended Yale Norfolk school of Art. Her most recent solo exhibition was at Harvard University with the support of the Mahindra Humanities Center. In addition, she has exhibited in group shows at The Luminary, St. Louis, and New York Academy of Art. She currently works as an artist and educator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Museum.
Support for the creation of significant new works of art has been the core to the mission and program of the Bruno David Gallery since its founding in 2005. I am deeply grateful to Ashlynn Stocks, who gave much time, talent, and expertise to the production of this catalogue. Invaluable gallery staff support for the exhibition was provided by Jana Yan, Jialing Sun, Hazel
CHECKLIST & IMAGES OF THE EXHIBITION
Unequal distribution of legs
Unequal distribution of legs (detail)
Going... going... gone!
Going... going... gone! (detail)
One block (detail)
Building a ladder that cannot be climbed twice 2024
Building a ladder that cannot be climbed twice (detail)
Mind made of wood (detail)
Fountains of Inquiry
Fountains of Inquiry
