Michael Wayne Moss (b. 1975) majored in painting at the University of Arkansas. Although he did not complete graduation, in 1996 Moss was awarded Art Student of the Year, as he began to refine a unique style and coloristic vocabulary. Since continuing with self education, Moss has been featured in multiple exhibitions and has gained numerous commissions for his work, which is represented in public and private collections. Moss currently resides in Collinsville, Illinois, where he continues to paint, take on commissions, and curate various exhibitions.
Michael Moss
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Statement:
When thinking in terms of a traditional oil painting; basic properties of foreground, mid-ground, and background are present in landscape, still-life, and portraiture.
My work contains all of the elements of these traditional ideas and has evolved into more of a respect for the way things are painted rather than the subject matter as well as the give and take relationship between the artist and medium. In painting, various mediums that are added to the paint as well as the way they are mixed, and depending on what’s underneath -can very much change the result. The outcome of this relationship in the found edges, shapes, colors, and history, I feel are equal parts the medium as well as the artist. I often go in to a piece in search of this discovery process over starting with a preconceived idea. A lot of my work tends to lean towards what might appear to be a focus on a necessary component of something much larger.
Both form and line are being presented in a monumental way, and are embedded within the idea of a landscape or still-life. The focus however is not on what we would conceive as a recognizable form, but on the idea of what makes a three dimensional form exist in a two dimensional format. A shape and the edges that encompass it or the contrast of one color next to another all lend to the illusion of a tangible existence with a minimalist approach. My work deals more on the surface of apparent as opposed to the real, while making distinguishable the individual parts.
Forms are going about their business in vast fields of color. Shapes and ideas couple together while being reduced to their simplest form. I approach my work with the same concept that we create, observe, and live.
