Mostyn Bramley-Moore - 2012 Gregory Jessup Every artist has a list of his/her own favourite artists and more than likely these people have influenced what they do to a fairly high degree. I'm no exception to this and have a bevy of artists past and present that i admire or to some degree emulate. The thing that an aspiring artist must do fairly quickly is form a philosophical base from which to work and studying favourites provides a perfect opportunity to do that. Failure to do this results in an art that is conceptually shallow and blandly mimetic in a derivative way. This may not be a hindrance at first, in the storm and bluster of young ambition and is forgivable but it inevitably leads to a vacuous, repetitive art practice and an art that fails to make the leap to "exceptional." Believe me, there are few artists that don't want to be considered as "exceptional," this being the affirmation that leads to personal and economic success. The artists that are important to me develop interesting work from an openly inquisitive mind, clear vision and a wide understanding of the theoretical issues inherent in making art. There is a sense that they are engaged in a lifelong project of the utmost urgency and that they are unearthing the next revelation step by step through innovation and systematic engagement with a core of uniquely personal painterly concerns.
Cap And Well - 1992 Mostyn Bramley-Moore Mostyn Bramley-Moore is such an artist. He is a painter working away at the edges of a very personal form of lyrical abstraction where a range of recurring motifs have been regularly materialising and fading from our view for some time now. These paintings, in many ways owe much to Cy Twombly's elegant, flowing method of painting and drawing. There is also a debt owed to artists like Ken Whisson, Ian Fairweather, Tony Tuckson, David Rankin and Judy Watson among others who also paint in a less literal sense. Make no mistake though, the ease with which Mostyn's paintings seem to be executed is only possible because of decades of scrupulous attention to his practice. What appears as simple or childlike yet so precisely balanced is the end result of sustained investigation and observation in the studio and out. This painter knows his forms and reinvigorates them with a fresh energy in every new painting he executes. He has become what all good painters are, an agent of transmogrification "par excellence." Colour, line and forms combine "alla prima" lending a scumbled and somewhat "grungy" sensibility to each composition. This is far from accidental and in fact has become the painters trademark signature almost immediately recognisable from a distance. The painter has nurtured a lyrically flowing narrative and poetic approach to his subject matter over a lifetime of engagement with painting. The images are fresh, direct, honest and highly allusive to a world of fecund organic shapes and ghostly entities swirling and roiling together across the picture plane. One gets a sense of imminent storm or the threat of the breakup of reality as we know it; "sublime" snapshots, if you like! Mostyn states emphatically that he is "a narrative painter" so each work becomes a small part in the grand fiction that is being and has been written, for many decades now.
Mostyn Bramley-Moore is a "painters painter" who probably says it better "visually" in paint than any other way. The urge to picture is idiosyncratic but not exclusive to a select type of creator individual. This is clear to see with the explosion of digital happy snaps posing as art, now choking the internet portals. It is clear that everyone is now an artist; just point and shoot; what freedom we have! It is also abundantly clear that the sensibility to produce artworks that evoke strong poetic feelings of nostalgia, mystery and joy all at once is uncommon and one to be treasured and appreciated. Artworks that cause a sense of dislocation, reflection and wonder in the viewer are accomplishing their task, namely the task of pointing the viewer towards presence and absence and the question of "that" which is beyond ourselves.
The paintings and drawings of Mostyn Bramley-Moore initially may appear to be antiquated, arcane, maybe even primitive in the face of the slick, clinical, digital multi-media tide deadening our sentient capacities but they are solid anchors in the face of the flood and can bring us back to an aesthetic "ground zero." If there was ever a time for artists to reclaim a link to the ineffable qualities embodied in the manual act of painting, it is now. The commercial culture machine is incessantly grooming clones for the market and let me tell you, the product is the same; it is the Machiavellian triumph of homogeneity over cultural diversity. Mostyn Bramley-Moore is holding his own patch of ground in defence of the efficacy of imagination and the painting project.
The paintings and drawings of Mostyn Bramley-Moore initially may appear to be antiquated, arcane, maybe even primitive in the face of the slick, clinical, digital multi-media tide deadening our sentient capacities but they are solid anchors in the face of the flood and can bring us back to an aesthetic "ground zero." If there was ever a time for artists to reclaim a link to the ineffable qualities embodied in the manual act of painting, it is now. The commercial culture machine is incessantly grooming clones for the market and let me tell you, the product is the same; it is the Machiavellian triumph of homogeneity over cultural diversity. Mostyn Bramley-Moore is holding his own patch of ground in defence of the efficacy of imagination and the painting project.
Some of my favourite pieces are displayed here in this gallery of images. These pictures were created on various grounds including polyester, linen, canvas and paper. Most were executed with paint as the sole medium but some include elements of collage. Whether wielding graphite, pencils or brush the placement of elements within the space of the composition is orchestrated by the artist with a high degree of finesse. There is such certainty in the order of motifs within the work, as if they are suspended and held still by some invisible force waiting for the moment of release. This tension is present in all the works whether achieved by the use of colour, line or open space and gives each image a certain kind of sensual gravitas.
It is evident with further observation that humour is involved in the interplay of elements but it is a fragile one verging on apprehension and disbelief! There is an enveloping sense of "nature" but at regular intervals people, buildings and machines attempt to insert/insinuate themselves into this environment but always tenuously as if repudiation or obliteration is just a breath away. A sense of impending "threat" seems to be waiting around the corner and this could be read as a commentary on the fragility of human existence in the face of nature's mighty forces. Decorative, beautiful, quirky? Whatever way you choose to receive these art works they are in fact anything but simple.
It is evident with further observation that humour is involved in the interplay of elements but it is a fragile one verging on apprehension and disbelief! There is an enveloping sense of "nature" but at regular intervals people, buildings and machines attempt to insert/insinuate themselves into this environment but always tenuously as if repudiation or obliteration is just a breath away. A sense of impending "threat" seems to be waiting around the corner and this could be read as a commentary on the fragility of human existence in the face of nature's mighty forces. Decorative, beautiful, quirky? Whatever way you choose to receive these art works they are in fact anything but simple.
There are times when painting lends its sensibilities to the "organic" and "curvilinear" and other times to the "hard edged" and "mechanical." The artist finds his/her identification in the way they use their materials in order to coerce from them the hidden forms that correctly reveal his/her intentions. Mostyn's "forte" is mastery of the elemental in the use of paint, motif and concept giving rise to works that embody a timeless, "universal" quality. They are windows on an imagination masterfully at play, discreet mirrors of possibility, endlessly deferred and we want them to be so we look and turn away and look again, the suspense is intoxicating!
I admire Mostyn's persistence with his painting project, his devotion to developing an "aesthetic" rather than being railroaded by the politicising agenda of contemporary art. In this hybridised world art culture where all identity and difference is being churned up by capitalism it is heartening to see "pure" painting take such a majestic stand resisting subsumption into the "one."
Learn more about Mostyn Bramley-Moore here.
I admire Mostyn's persistence with his painting project, his devotion to developing an "aesthetic" rather than being railroaded by the politicising agenda of contemporary art. In this hybridised world art culture where all identity and difference is being churned up by capitalism it is heartening to see "pure" painting take such a majestic stand resisting subsumption into the "one."
Learn more about Mostyn Bramley-Moore here.
