Moira Pagan
The Artist
Moira Pagan
Her Art Career has mainly involved teaching Art and Design, Painting and Sculpture up to degree level . She was instrumental in setting up study programmes in Art, Music and Performance at Kendal College of Further Education in the English Lakes District and eventually working in a medium security male prison in the UK teaching Art and Meditation.
Moira has exhibited work in Scotland, the Yorkshire Dales and Germany and having arrived in New Zealand in 2004, has sold work in Wellington at the Naxos Gallery, The Bach Restaurant (near Island Bay), and the Breakaway Cafe (Wellington Hospital).
She then moved to Northland, where her work took a dramatic shift from traditional landscape painting to focus on an inner journey using a range of themes which suggest themselves during the process of drawing and contemplation.
In 2014 Moira and her husband Wayne moved to Port Macquarie in NSW Australia where she worked on the series ANZAC nurses, paintings of the coastal walkway, waterfall series and illustrated two books about the life of her ancestor Grace Darling.
Inspiration
The inner journey from darkness towards light, from chaos and confusion towards clarity and peace are broad themes to my work. Buddhist writings and my own spiritual journey provide most of my inspiration. I draw upon my European Art heritage, the cathedrals, monastic spaces and perspective of the Renaissance Painters. The image of pathways through forests, across water and down ancient corridors also inspire, alongside my recent move to live near the volcanic headlands of Northland in New Zealand. In New Zealand the past is so close to the present it can almost be seen. The ancient landscapes and vibrant birdlife in Australia have inspired the waterfall series and coastal paintings.
A move to Australia in 2014 has inspired feelings of sympathy with early settlers and the dramatic changes wrought in the lives of those who found themselves transported to the other side of the world for whatever reason- a series of paintings referencing the Anzac nurses who were often women from small town or outback Australia and New Zealand who found themselves catapaulted into War as well as the glamour of Europe, Egypt and drama the like of which they would never have imagined themselves within.
Art Philosophy
Paintings and their subject matter emerge during the process of drawing, painting and contemplation. My work is neither wholly figurative nor wholly abstract but rather I would hope the eye of the viewer can move over the surface of the painting and have some reaction or inner response of meaning, personal to them, as well as becoming aware of more hidden layers which may be revealed later or emerge beyond the surface image.
Methods and Materials
Recent paintings are built up in layers of mixed media using beeswax, fabric, acrylic, gold leaf and oil sticks. Texture and colour are laid down intuitively to express hidden emotions and responses below the surface of life. Chaos and confusion in the way the colour is applied initially gives way to more structured areas of dark and light in which perspective and forms emerge to reveal different stories.