Up and coming artist
Heather Moore is one of the many up and coming artists in London. She lives, breathes and eats art, and is very determined to succeed with her inspired art works. By Hodan Jamal ell me about yourself; your name,
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age and about you in general? “My name is Heather Moore and I am a 38-year old art student. I originally come from Port Glasgow, on the West Coast of Scotland, but have been living in London for 14 years with my partner and their 18 year old daughter.” Heather came late to creating art, having attended university and worked in the automotive and engineering sector for most of her career. Then she had the ‘misfortune’ of falling ill and having to give up her job. She recuperated at home and was forced to spend long periods of time in bed, so she learned to use Adobe Photoshop to create artwork. Heather says “I couldn’t really draw at this stage, so I decided to take an evening painting class at college, then found myself enrolling for an entry level art course full time and was quickly put into an intermediate class. Now I’m studying an HND and will be applying for second year at Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen, later this year.” What medium do you use? I mainly use acrylic paints, solely because they dry quickly. My preference is oil paints in terms of quality and depth and their ability to blend is second to none. The downside is that they take a long time to dry, and being in college I have so many projects on the go that there simply isn’t enough time to allow for their use. Also, you have to develop patience when using oils, whereas acrylics allow you to work much faster. In addition to acrylics, I work with a variety of other media which makes for interesting work surfaces and helps bring my work come to life. Who influences your art? So many people!, My partner Joseph is, and always has been, my muse. I bounce all my ideas off him. I come up with ideas and pitch them to him, and he returns with things that I might not think of. I might completely disagree with what he says, but he always takes me to where I want to go. Basically I think aloud and won’t shut up until he gives me his input. He gets peace and quiet in return… for a while. It’s a symbiotic relationship. As for artists, I think there’s a revolving door which sees many people go through it, and it really depends on which projects I’m working on. My studies push me
towards artists I normally wouldn’t think of or necessarily like, which gives me a greater appreciation for the artist and their work. At the moment, I’m researching ToulouseLautrec, JMW Turner, Edward Hopper and Robert Rauschenberg – artists I had never been particularly drawn to – but they are a huge influence on my current work and I now have a greater understanding of them. I take what I can from them, and move onto the next project. What kind of art do you paint? I paint mainly representational, semiabstract or expressionist art but because I’m still learning, I’ve yet to find my oeuvre. I want to make art that people can see many things in and I don’t want to make it too obvious to the viewer. I like ambiguity in my work; I like it when people say, ‘I see …’, or ‘it looks like a…’. I don’t mind if it’s not what I was thinking when I made the painting. I think that it is half the fun of looking at art, and half the fun of making it. My art changes most of the time and it makes me think about other ideas. I like when that happens because it makes me think further and Far left: ‘Visage/Bowie’ inspired painting by Heather. Right top: by Heather Moore, based on “sunrise with sea monsters” by Turner. Bottom left: by Heather Moore, based on David Hockneys “Pool series.”
broader then what I already had in mind. Who, to you, is the most influential artist of the 20th century? Giving this a lot of thought, I have always been torn between two people: Damien Hirst and Banksy. I came down on the side of Banksy, as I think he is invading pop culture on a massive scale. I know he’s not the first street artist, and many will say there are better, but I think he is ‘on message’ and says many of the things we are all thinking. What I think attracts people to Banksy is the fact that his work is so subversive yet accessible, and he himself is such an enigma. He is a paradox of the “cult of personality”; everyone knows who he is, yet they have no idea who he is! He’s a little bit dangerous; he’s the masked antihero ‘dirtying’ up our streets, and society loves anti-heroes. Street Art is reaching mass audiences because of Banksy, and this is why I picked him over Hirst. I don’t believe Hirst’s work is as accessible to those outside of the art community. What inspires you when you are painting? It might sound clichéd but I draw inspiration from everywhere - I think it’s integral to being an artist. Everywhere you look, everything you see has the potential to be
translated, whether it’s texture, pattern, shape or colour. I don’t necessarily look at an object and say ‘that’s a window’. I look at it and say, ‘what do I see when I look through the window?’, ‘what colours do I see?’, or ‘what if I moved the window to where you would least expect it?’. Words are another source of inspiration. I ‘mindmap’ a word, making a visual thesaurus, to see where that word could take me. This is a journey in itself. Where would you like to see your work someday when you’ve become successful? Whilst the idea of seeing my work in the Tate or the Louvre would be amazing, I honestly don’t mind where it is. My local hospital had a gallery where the students from the local art school would get to display their work and I have many memories of hours spent walking the corridors admiring their paintings. In fact, it is from there that I really developed my appreciation of art. If I were able to display my work in such a place and it brought happiness to just one person then I’d be just as happy. Hopefully I will soon be the next big artist everyone talks about.
“I want to make art that people can see many things in.”
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