With a focus on the beauty and the terrors of growing up, PureHoney featured artist for August 2024 Aris Moore has created a menagerie of haunting portraiture. The way that Moore’s faces — human and animal — swim toward you out of a flat white sea of background can be unsettling. For ‘90s kids it might recall Stephen Gammell’s illustrations in the children’s book series, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.
Part of the reason for the figures’ ghostly visages is Moore’s use of erasure. “Erasing faces and bringing them back again is how they become who they are supposed to be,” More says in an interview. “They gradually reveal themselves after being pushed in and pulled out of the paper. I have always loved that drawings are actually in the paper, not resting on top of it.”
These inscribed faces know no age, and stare unabashedly out at the viewer, much like children when disturbed while at play. Their gawky bodies twist and turn at odd angles, inspecting you as much as you inspect them. Their curiosity reflects’ Moore’s fascination with the pathways between childhood and adulthood that we all must traverse, particularly the peering eyes. Even as a small girl, Moore was drawing.
“Drawing became an important part of my days when I was little, so I think my childhood is still very much with me when I draw,” she says. “I can’t imagine anything that could be more fascinating than the process of growing up. I have spent my adult life teaching and raising my own children. I think spending so much time in the company of their honesty and raw emotion has kept me in touch with mine. I am always drawing with the breadth of my whole life.”
Her unique way of seeing isn’t restricted only to people; Moore portrays an animal kingdom, too, of creatures strange and familiar. Frogs are a recurring subject. “They were so unlike everything else,” Moore says of her childhood fascination with the amphibious hoppers. “They are fairly easy to find and catch and are so full of character. Their eyes being so large in relation to their bodies and their natural grin make them seem lighthearted, trustworthy and safe.”
Moore outgrew frogs as pets if not as portraits. “Now, I have an amazing Siamese cat named Theo,” she says. “I would have more animals for sure if i wasn’t living in an apartment. I have also had rats, dogs, a rabbit and a bird throughout my life.”
“It’s interesting, too,” she adds, “I feel like the animals in my life have somehow been older and wiser than me. I know that I nurture and take care of them but I have felt the same from them, and looking into their eyes I have felt such a knowing comfort. I have always assumed that animals know more than humans do.”
Moore’s artistic journey has seen a fascinating evolution in terms of scale. From the early confines of sketchbook pages to the expansive canvases of her graduate studies, each size offers a different landscape for her characters to inhabit. “I like the immediacy and coziness of drawing in small sketchbooks. It feels more private and like playing,” she says.
In contrast, larger works demand more planning and carry a weight of importance that she is learning to approach with less seriousness. This ongoing exploration of scale reflects Moore’s playful yet profound relationship to art.
Moore acknowledges that in her roles as artist, teacher and mother, she tries to hold to the innocence and simplicity of her childhood beliefs. “Those were sweet times, before I fully understood loss, loneliness and the suffering that was all around me,” she says. “I thought family was a constant. I didn’t realize how fragile it was.
“I thought that if I behaved everything would be okay,” Moore continues. “I thought it was going to be easier being an adult because I could have dessert whenever I wanted. How could I have known the beauty that my kids would bring into my life that would be better than dessert and that drawing and spending time in nature would still be my peace?”
Find the artist at arismoore.bigcartel.com, Instagram @arismoore ~ Kelli Bodle
