Malcolm Campbell Moran

Article from the Art Economist Excerpts From The Art Economist

My recent exhibition at 571 Projects was reviewed in the "Art Economist", the premier monthly publication dedicated to art collecting world wide. The article is attached in full as a downloadable pdf file at the bottom of this page. The Exhibition was also singled out by "Artcards" for their February 1-7, 2011 Weekly Update. And Artforum's "Artguide".  All in all, it was a wonderful experience and I wish to thank all of the people who helped and supported me along the way.

Art Economist Article

Malcolm Moran's recent work from his Birds Up Close series are inspired by the John J Audubon's The Birds of America, a folio of engraved plates produced between 1827-1838 from watercolors created during his travels throughout the Eastern United States. Malcolm was born and raised in south Louisiana and first encountered birds, like Audubon, first as a hunter and later as an artist. His awareness of the majesty of these amazing little creatures and first face to face encounter came early in life. The theme of birds has recurred throughout Malcolm's career, but have recently taken a turn landing him somewhere somwhere between the ornithological studies of Audubon and his own past Dream Theatre studies. To see the latest of this series a studio visit will be necessary.

Artists Statement Excerpt/ From The Exhibition

This exhibition of bird paintings and monoprints has its own set of stories that express significant impressions and experiences in my life. All of the stories are visual metaphors meant to express some event or subject I could not otherwise express in other than pictorial form. One such story led to my first bird image. While on rout to visit a dear friend who was dying of cancer at her home in the now famous Ninth Ward of New Orleans, I happened upon a bird looking intensely at itself in a puddle of water. The puddle was formed in a pothole, in the middle a decrepit street, in a battered neighborhood, leading to a home made beautiful by the woman dying within it. The bird blocked my passage, forcing me to wait and look until he was ready to move. I have never known an animal to be narcissistic, least of all birds. I have never heard of a bird getting carried away with its self, but this bird did. I believe he was so mesmerized as to forget his natural drive to flee. He seemed more human than birdlike, and the scene had the feeling of an omen or a dream. The exact meaning of this story is unclear, but I will tell you my dear friend died, her husband was murdered some months later, and their house and neighborhood were destroyed in Hurricane Katrina. The connection of these events and the image of that bird lingers, revealing, with mysterious clarity, a reason and a purpose to this story. To this day I have felt compelled to create and recreate the image of birds, present yet so lost in their "bird self".

Malcolm Moran: Mixed Media will be on view through February 26, 2011 at 571 Projects, 551 West 21st Street, Unit 204A, New York City, 10011.  571 Projects is open Tuesday - Saturday, 12 - 6pm, and by appointment.

Tu-Sat, 12-6pm & by appt | 551 W. 21st St | 2nd Floor | Unit 204A | New York City

In August of 2010 I spent a week working with Maria Ancona of 10 Grand Press at the Center for Contemporary Printmaking in Norwalk Connecticut. This happy gathering of souls locked away in the Helen Frankenthaler Printmaking Cottage produced over fifty new monoprints. Several of the prints are included in the "print" section of this web site. The prints shown here were made over a five year period from 2005 to the present and the great majority of work are monoprints and drypoint etchings. Several of the prints are included in the "print" section of this web site.

Malcolm Moran's recent work from his Birds Up Close series are inspired by the John J Audubon's The Birds of America, a folio of engraved plates produced between 1827-1838 from watercolors created from his travels throughout the Eastern United States.

Malcolm was born and raised in the south Louisiana and first encountered birds, like Audubon, first as a hunter and later as an artist. His awareness of the majesty of these amazing little creatures and first face to face encounter came at an early age.

"As early as age seven, my father would take me and my brothers on hunting excursions deep in to the marsh praries of south Louisiana guided by cajun trapers in mud boats and pirouges. From places like Little Pecan Island, Gaudin, and Point al a Hache, we would begin our trek usually around three in the morning, travelling up to an hour through laborintine man made canals, three feet wide and cut through the mud clogged and naturally rotting marsh praries, to our duck blinds, usually set on the leward side of lakes and ponds so the ducks and geese would land in to the wind, brests exposed to assure a clean kill. My first encounter with these magnificent animals, my first memory, was not a sight, but a sound, a "swish", like a lip wistle without the wistle.. Swish, silence, swish, swish, and spash. The splash or spashes were just that and no more. There was nothing majestic about their landing. Two, five, or fifty little fat men plopping into the water, then silence.

My first encounter with man meets animal was a disconnect, both with my cajun teachers and with the ducks. From the hunters point of view, there is a moment when the ducks, committed to landing, suspenderd feet above the water, were vulnerable to a direct hit to the belly. Death was immediate if the aim was spot on and the timing perfect. This was the "manly" shot, the "correct" shot. In south Louisiiana manliness and gunmanship were held in high regard, so the pressure was on from the very beginning.

The bulk of these drawings were made during his sojourn in the Louisiana delta region (Malcolm's bithplace and spiritual font). Where Audubon focused his attention on the onthological and formal artistic observation of birds, Malcolm's interests lie in the curious behavior of different bird species and the similar and perhaps related behavior of humans.

This body of work is about time and people and their brief intersection ... the slow steady passage of time, the impermanence of the physical world within this passage of time, and the trace of stories exposed by decay. These collages are inspired by my observation of the urban walls of Italy, walls whose images date from the Renaissance to the day before yesterday . I photographed and sketched walls used by people to display posters, and flyers, graffiti, and liturgical art. It seems that the Italians have been scribbling, painting, and posting things on their walls since the days of the fresco artists. Embedded in the layers of marks and decayed pictures are stories and visual puzzles, conversations between one citizen and another (or one generation and another). My expression of these stories is for the most part abstract, with modern shapes transposed on backgrounds worn by time and circumstance.

The imagery of simple geometric shapes is reminiscent of conversations that I had with my father when I was a boy. His passion for physics and science and the physical world were deeply imbedded in my memory. Like the walls of Italy, filled with scribbles of one person speaking to another, these images are my conversation with these memories and my father.