MARGE LOUDON MOODY - Made in America 1983-2013: Collage

Marge Loudon Moody

Made in America 1983 – 2013: Collage

Gallery 80808, Vista Studios, 808 Lady St, Columbia, SC, 29201

November 8, 9 and Nov 11, 12 noon to 5pm each day 

Reception November 7, 5 – 8pm

Press Release

In the final exhibition of several shows held this year celebrating her 30-Year retrospective, artist Marge Loudon Moody will be displaying some of her graphic work in an exhibition entitled Made in America; 1983 – 2013: Collage, at Gallery 80808, Vista Studios, 808 Lady Street, Columbia, SC, 29201. The opening reception is Thursday, Nov 7, 5 – 8pm, and the exhibition, which is free and open to the public, runs through November 11.  As in previous shows, 35% of sales will benefit the homeless – in Columbia, ’Transitions’ Homeless facility. 

Moody’s artist statement reads: ‘My work is inspired by the spirit of place. I make abstract acrylic paintings on canvas, collages and mixed-media pieces, which, through a rigorous process of working and reworking of composition and art elements, arrive at a harmonious expression of the essential nature of the subject.  

My collage work often employs ‘found’ materials and involves layering and precise juxtaposition of line, color, shape and texture.  Life experience may be similarly layered.  At times, subject matter serves as metaphor for intangible ideas. It examines boundaries, and addresses the fragility of existence, of presence, of absence, and of memory’. 

Selected small collages that span 30 years (1983 – 2013) on a variety of themes will be on view. Such themes include the City Scene series; Bird Series; Precious Threads series; the Square series and the Urban Instincts series.

‘Marge Moody: Collage’, an essay by David Houston, 2000

“By its very nature collage is an open text that, when successful, establishes an empathetic link between the artist, the image and the viewer.  The subtle nature of this communication, as does conversation, is renewed with each encounter and makes significant demands on both parties.  The artist must rely on a sure sense of composition to shape many different elements into a unified work, while the viewer is challenged to look beyond the convention of semblance and respond to a poetic language that often relies on ambiguity and abstraction.  Outliving its modernist heritage, the collage sensibility is now the very foundation for our understanding of the world:  as we read a magazine, shop, use the computer, or drive down the strip, we enter the realm of collage.

Within this context, the collage pieces of Scottish-born artist Marge Moody address a different realm than that of our cacophonous lives.  Cutting and pasting, mark-making and layering are all techniques which, in her hands, bring order rather than celebrate randomness.  Relying on subtle relationships and the carefully considered play of tension her work abjures absolutes and contrasts sharply with the media-conscious narratives of much contemporary art.  For the knowing viewer, references abound.  Partly conscious but mostly not, Moody’s use of the language of the twentieth century abstract art relies on intuitive borrowing rather than outright appropriation or ironic quotation.  For viewers unfamiliar with this tradition, these works invite an individual response and succeed in communicating the satisfaction of aesthetic engagement and delight.  Above all, the works by Marge Moody invite all of us to rediscover the almost forgotten experience of genuinely looking at art.”

David Houston was former head of Visual Art at the SC Arts Commission, Columbia, SC; former Director of Rudolph E. Lee Gallery, Clemson University, South Carolina; former Head Curator of the Ogden Museum, New Orleans, Louisiana; and former Director of Curatorial, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art,  Bentonville, AR

For additional information contact the artist at moodym@winthrop.edu , visit her website at www.margeloudonmoody.com or follow her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/margemoody