John Moore

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

John Moore was schooled at St John’s College. He loved nature and art but felt a career in Graphic design would feed his soul. He was accepted to complete a Graphic design course at Witwatersrand Technikon where he later changed to Fine Arts. He then went on to complete his H.Dip Diploma in printmaking.
He Fell in love with the Printmaking Medium and started combining his love of Nature with his artistic skills focusing on the myths and legends of the indigenous peoples of the country. His mediums include, etching, lithographs, woodblocks and Linocuts.
His work has evolved into more conceptual imagery and now has South Africa’s largest press in his studio. He loves working on Large scale work creating immense detail on the imagery. He gets his source material from reading, writing poems, experiences in nature, or movies. He is currently working towards an exhibition which will be held is September at Gordart Gallery.

PROJECT

Title The tale of tales
Medium Pen and ink drawings with Arches paper
Dimensions 30 cm x 20 cm
Edition Unique
Price -

The book is a hand-coloured and illustrated book of African stories which have been compiled from both research and ideas that I have been working on over many years. The book contains type which I have developed, and explores the myth and symbolism of Africa. The text is meaningless without a text and here I have deliberately not given one. The viewer has to engage with the stories through the use of visual reference, the images that surround the pages. Between the pages I have placed thin paper with the English version for the viewer to engage with the story. As one pages through the book, text and image overlap to bring a multi-layered sense of our rich African heritage.

The story “A tale of tales” has been compiled by spending time, over years, with Bushman people in remote areas of the country, in the Orange River area in a settlement called Bendall. Other research included Kuruman and extensive travels to Namibia. All these expeditions required that I connected and researched the stories that have been passed down and told by the Bushman peoples.

The book has been made with a monochrome brown ink, symbolising an ancient yet converted text.

The book is meant to be a place of reverence; sacred text lines the pages, a priceless relic of our past, revealed to us from an ancient time. Magic and myth must seem to seep from its pages revealing a time we can only access through the ancient ones, the first people of the land, the Bushmen.

I have used iconography from Bushman cave paintings, infusing the pages with their wonder and respect regarding rituals they held in days gone by. The book holds a key to their memories, slowly fading as their paintings slowly wither away, forever.