The 2001 Anne & Gordon Samstag
International Visual Arts Scholarships
| Fassih Keiso | Linda Marrinon | Archie Moore | Rea | John Spiteri | Paul White |
Artist: ARCHIE MOORE
Titled 2000
pastel, blackboard paint on canvas
35 x 35 cm each
© the artist
Yolk 1998
pastel on card
40 x 30 cm
© the artist
Growing up Aboriginal in a country town in rural Queensland, Archie Moore found words sometimes like a cut or a slap. In the jokey meanness of the playground, racist taunts came in forms that could be simultaneously hurtful and funny, depending on where you stood. This experience spurred an interest in language, as a structural system, and as a form of communication dependent for its sense on cultural context and values.
In his earlier works he explored the arbitrary connection between the phonetic element of language and its assignment of meaning. In these paintings he set up a conundrum juxtaposing the Russian word (a language he was learning at the time) for an object and an image of that thing against its pronunciation transliterated in English.
His later series, Titled, recalls and revisits that formative schoolyard experience more specifically. Using pastel on blackboard paint on canvas to mimic an institutional setting, he inscribes one word over another, choosing terms that come from two different points of view or directions, and describe two different feelings: "nice" and "nigger", "mum" and "gin". These new composite words are familiar yet strange. They resonate poetically and the formal play of the shapes of the yellow letters outlined in white against a black background holds our attention while we struggle with recognition, and ponder meaning.
Robyn McKenzie
From her Samstag catalogue essay
Art and Research
| Archie Moore Born 1970, Toowoomba, Queensland |
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| 2001 | Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship Non-degree Research Program, Academy of Fine Arts, Prague, Czech Republic |
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| 1998 | Bachelor of Art, Queensland University of Technology, Kelvin Grove, Queensland | |
| 1991 | Certificate in Art and Design, Gateway TAFE, Eagle Farm, Queensland |
| Fassih Keiso | Linda Marrinon | Archie Moore | Rea | John Spiteri | Paul White |