Artist Marjorie Moeser brings a new approach to working with paper to the Rio Grande Theatre Galleries
Who: Rio Grande Theatre Galleries
What: Collection of Marjorie Moeser’s artwork on display
When: December 2009
Where: Rio Grande Theatre Galleries
Contact: (575) 523-6403
Artist Marjorie Moeser brings a new approach to working with paper to the Rio Grande Theatre Galleries
December will be off to a festive start with WinterFest on the Downtown Mall and the galleries of the Rio Grande Theatre will be right in step with brand new exhibition called Works On Paper: Canyon Suite and Collages by artist Marjorie Moeser. Moeser is a Toronto artist based partly in New Mexico, partly in the South of France, whose paintings are primarily about time and change and how they impact the environment. The exhibition, featuring two very different approaches to working on paper in both size and technique, will take place in both the El Paso Electric and Carolene de Mesilla Galleries. The show will run through the entire month of December, 2009, beginning with an artist reception on December 4, from 5 to 7pm, as part of the Downtown Art Ramble.
In her Canyon Suite, Moeser presents her response to canyon walls she saw in the canyons of Arizona, near the Grand Canyon. These paintings are all done on oversized paper, using oil stick and some oil pastel. The rocky canyon walls express themselves as sinuous, undulating amorphic shapes. Moeser makes the intrinsic nature of paper come alive, moving along as it does with the walls which in turn seem to become like giant torsos, sensuously moving across the surface of the paper. Colors are deep and rich, and seem to glow from within. Moeser’s choice of oil stick as a medium helps create this richness of hue. Her process is an additive and subtractive one, in which she scrapes away colors to reveal underlying hues, which at times are left subtly present and at other times get colored over to create deeper and richer tones. A sense of pattern within the rock structure is definitely present. Her colors seem to dance across the paper and spill right out into the surrounding space.
In her Collages, Moeser hones her compositions as a jeweler would with little gems. Paper, mostly exquisite Japanese paper, is her medium and the scale is a very small format (10” x 10”). She is comfortable with abstraction, allowing shapes, lines, colors and texture free rein to interact, overlay, show color through or block it out with built up textures and opaque shapes. All of the collages use Japanese papers with some paint, some fabric or found material. Each composition can be envisioned as a miniature large scale painting. Hers is a fresh look at an old medium.
The Rio Grande Theatre galleries, located in the lobby of the historic Rio Grande Theatre at 211 N. Main in Las Cruces, are open Monday through Friday from 9am to 5pm. For more information, contact the DAAC office at (575) 523-6403.