A portrait artist, who approaches her subjects from a postmodern slant, Susan Moore creates distinctive, revealing images of women. Moore works on a large scale and her subjects convey a powerful, stoic stance. By removing sentimental feelings toward her subject and focusing on materials, pose and light, the artist distills the sitter’s image into the essential essence of a glance, a movement, a stance and through the paint the individual becomes an enigmatic persona of the gesture.
In this recent series Vanity, styles of dress and the subjects’ poses reveal much about perceptions of beauty and how women present themselves. The lush sheen of velvet or brocade and how it drapes the body is rendered with Moore’s characteristic pebbly surface, achieved with multiple layers of oil stick. Vanity explores the full spectrum of societal norms regarding beauty, from high gloss images of refinement to stressed or aging bodies. The finished paintings act more as objective observations, than social commentary.
Moore has taught for the past two decades at Tyler School of Art, Temple University. Her work has been exhibited regularly in Philadelphia and throughout the U.S. She was selected for the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s 1998 exhibit, Twenty Philadelphia Artists and her work is included in the museum’s permanent collection. This is her third exhibition at the Locks Gallery.