John L. Moore
As a boy, John Moore was drawn to water. He played for hours on the banks of Doan Creek near the place where it flowed into Lake Erie. Years later, when he began to paint, he found himself trying to bring together the quicksilver texture or nervous turbulence of flowing water and the stark architectural shapes of his innercity neighborhood. It was not what he saw that he found himself trying to get on canvas, but what he experienced when confronted with these mysterious presences. For Moore (who was born in 1939) is interested in the relationship of humankind to its surroundings, especially the urban landscape, and the interior, psychic spaces our experience of the physical world helps to shape. Moore’s professional career began after he served three years in the Army’s elite 101st Airborne Division. During the early 1970s Moore taught painting and drawing at Cuyahoga Community College, while pursuing his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in fine arts at Kent State University. From 1974 to 1885 Moore worked as an assistant curator and instructor in the education department of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Moving to New York, he held positions as adjunct professor at Queens College, City University of New York, and Parsons School of Design. From 1994 to 2004 he was senior visiting artist at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York, and was also an artist in residence at the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Cleveland Institute of Art and the Rhode Island School of Design.
