Sunday, February 06, 2005

Early work by Michael G. Moore: "Color 6"

Michael G. Moore, Shreveport-based painter, created the online Northwest Louisiana Art Gallery in 2002. There he shows work by his friends and acquaintances and works steadily to build a one-stop world of art.

Michael was the subject of an interview by Shreveport Times arts reporter Jennifer Flowers on Friday, Feb. 4.

Alas, the daily newspaper offers its reporters and subjects limited if, I suppose, democratically allotted space - even when it comes to visual arts stories. Happily, there are new tools and windows through which we can look at our society. At this metro blog and Moore's Nwlaartgallery.com you can enjoy more of the artist's compelling work.

In this series Moore presents the artist as wounded if heroic observer. As he revealed in the Times / Flowers interview, he is bi-polar. "And all my art really deals with personal issues and things that I've gone through in my life and things I'm currently going through. I'm bipolar so I deal a lot with mental illness in my work. I'm very vocal about being bipolar and it makes many people uncomfortable to talk about it, but I think that different illnesses need to be talked about more. It's something people don't need to be uncomfortable with. It's not different form being diabetic, for instance."

Does knowing about the imbalance suffered by the artist affect your ability to enjoy his work? Background such as that provided by Flowers certainly helps the viewer understand the nature of the outsized eye in this benign, haunting self-portrait.

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