Moira Welch is a British - Mozambican Artist based in West Sussex. The beauty of the Sussex landscape serves as the main inspiration for her work, which focusses on natural themes connected to its flora and fauna, coastline, ancient woodlands, rolling chalk-streaked hills and big skies.
She uses mixed media (acrylic, watercolour, pencil, charcoal, ink and chalk) to create her semi-abstract paintings, primarily using cartridge paper but more recently also on reclaimed textiles and photographs.
Moira studied photography in New York and has gained degrees in Art History and Arts Policy from the Universities of Sussex and London respectively. In the past few years she has taken part in experimental art courses and workshops at Paddock Studios and Seawhite. She currently exhibits with Gallery UNO in Seaford and with the Ashdown Arts collective.
Statement
My paintings are shaped and guided by the natural beauty of the Sussex landscape which I now call home - its flora and fauna, coastline, ancient woodlands, rolling, chalk-streaked hills and big skies are endlessly inspiring - but I am also influenced by my travels and having lived in multiple countries including Mozambique, Senegal and Portugal. The intense colours of West Africa, tropical heat haze of Mozambique and the luminous glaze of Portuguese tile work are just some of the diverse elements that find their way into my work.
I am fascinated by ancient signs and symbols such as Hieroglyphics, the Celtic alphabet, religious and spiritual symbols and royal iconography, and you will often find these etched into my work.
Currently I’m experimenting with combining photography and acrylic paint to produce a distinctive luminous effect; neither painting nor photograph, but somewhere dreamily in-between, blurring the distinctions between the two mediums and combining my earlier training in photography together with painting, coming full circle to bring the various threads of my creativity together.
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