Joy Moser: Night Clouds (2016-2017)
Joy Moser: Night Clouds is the current exhibition at Macy Art Gallery, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, NY, on view September 5-28, 2017
“The Macy Art Gallery is proud to introduce a new body of work by our esteemed colleague Dr. Joy Moser. Clouds have played an integral role in Joy’s recent paintings as we saw in her 2008 Macy exhibition “Burgundy Canal.” In this earlier series, her clouds brought an enveloping drama to quiet scenes of water, fields and roads disappearing gently at their horizons.
Now, in 2017, her clouds are more turbulent and set free from constraints: free to mass, billow, stretch and dance asserting their independence across canvases saturated with glorious blues within which they push and pull in infinite space. Joining an august company of artists enchanted by the changing energies and dramas of the skies, Joy here asserts her leap into abstraction, into the generous interplay of color, form and movement that inspires and sets free in each of us, her audience, our own individual experiences of fusing the dynamic umbrella of nature with the glorious plasticity of paint.”
–Judith M. Burton
NIGHT CLOUD #2, oil on canvas, 48 x 44
Artist’s Statement
“ … the blue and the dim and the dark cloth of night…”
–William Butler Yeats
This new series of paintings evolve from my continued fascination with the visual landscape-trees, water, sky– the infinite variety and always the mystery of form and change. A few years ago I did a series of small paintings called Constable Clouds in homage to the great English painter. Recently I returned to that subject and discovered in the abstraction of sky and cloud forms the images for Night Clouds.
-Joy Moser August 2017
NIGHT CLOUD #11, oil on wood, 12 x 12
To see more of these amazing works, view the exhibition catalogue online at:
Works in this exhibition are for sale; proceeds donated in support of the Moser-Burton Fellowship offered each year to a student in the Art and Art Education Program. Anyone interested in purchasing one of Joy’s paintings should contact her directly at joymoserstudio.com.
About the Artist Joy Moser
Joy Moser, photo credit: John Maggiotto
My life as a painter began in the late 1950s when abstraction was “The only game in town”. I followed and progressed through gesture, organic and finally, geometric non-objective painting.
The radical move for me was to discover that the real world of landscape lurked behind all that past work. My childhood in the mountains of Pennsylvania pervaded my “way of seeing” and I wanted to investigate and celebrate the infinite variety of tone, color and composition that I found around me.
Sky, the structure of trees, mist and water appeared to fill a hunger to look again and again. There was mystery and danger lurking behind the beauty, and my aim was to try to avoid the cliché and explore the infinite structure of the visual landscape.
NIGHT CLOUDS #21, 2017, oil on wood, 18 x 30
Now I use my camera as a sketchbook and search for images that seem to offer odd structure and “mystery”. I shoot multiple points of view, cull, crop, and mostly discard. The surviving photographs become the catalyst for the paintings and the process is always a mediation between memory and the small image pinned to my easel.
To view more of her work, visit joymoserstudio.com
About Macy Art Gallery
The Macy Art Gallery is one of the last spaces at Teachers College still in its original use. The Gallery presents a wide range of exhibitions by national and international artists, graduate students, faculty members and alumni, as well as the finest examples of artworks by children of all ages. The year-round exhibition schedule reflects the commitment of Teachers College to cultural diversity in education and the visual arts.
The Gallery is located on the fourth floor of Macy Hall and is open Mon-Fri, 11am-6pm.
To learn more about ongoing exhibitions, artists’ talks and lectures, visit the website of the Art and Art Education Program at Teachers College.
