JOHN MORAN

About the Artist

John Moran grew up in Washington, D.C., and earned a BA degree in Political Science from Wake Forest University. His art career began in his late twenties when he took evening watercolor classes and figure drawing at the American Academy of Art in Chicago. He continued to study painting, working with the figure in acrylics for another four years while attending classes at an art league where he also ventured into lithography and intaglio print making. He spent the next 25 years in West Virginia raising a family, farming, and working his government job. Moran continued to paint mostly in watercolor doing plein air landscapes. In 1997 he retired and moved to the Eastern Shore of Maryland devoting most of his time to painting with an emphasis on the human figure. In August, 2004 he moved to Baltimore to attend the Hoffberger School of Painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art, and in May of 2006 received the MFA degree. Following graduation he entered the Patterson Artist Residency Program at the Creative Alliance in Baltimore and in August, 2007 he returned to Kent Island. Moran has received numerous honors and awards including: Graduating Master’s Commencement Speaker, Maryland Institute College of Art; Candidate for the Joan Mitchell MFA Grant, New York, 2006; 2015 Juror's Choice Award, Fall Member Show, Maryland Federation of Art; 2013 Award for Excellence in Contemporary Art in Any Medium, Academy Art Museum; 2004 Honorable Mention, Winter Juried Exhibition, Maryland Federation of Art; 2003 Juror’s Choice Award, Winter Juried Exhibition, Maryland Federation of Art; and Gold Medal Winner 2002 Mid-Atlantic Regional, Baltimore Watercolor Society. His work was featured in The Artist’s Encyclopedia: terms techniques and materials for the practicing artist by Phil Metzger, published June, 2001, by North Light Books, and presented in Watercolor Magic, May 2003, Volume Eleven, Number Two.

Artist's Statement

I view painting as creating visual poetry. I choose the objects in my paintings simply because they appeal to me. As I think about these different objects I begin to sense a commonality and work to bring them together. An idea develops and starts to take on visual form, undergoing continuous change as my thoughts change. I paint and remove paint, and paint some more until the surface takes a life of its own and the painting tells me what it wants. In my work the best things are those that occur without planning, that just happen as a result of something not working, a mistake, a new thought…images that are suddenly caught without anticipation. As to content: What is so significant about a Cezanne still-life or a landscape with a mountain, or a Morandi still-life? It's not the subject itself; it's the magic you can make of it.