Aidan Moesby :: Text Artist

Back to Basics

As part of the Hotbed Press 20 x 20 I created a very simple print. The thing with using the Adana hand press is that every print I produced was different. Lots of happy accidents.

Letterpress Print, 2011

Letterpress Workshops

I have just completed my first letterpress workshop in my new studio. I am mentoring some people who are taking part in the Book Apothecary Project. The people who came today are all running their own projects as part of the Book Apothecary. The first part of the day was looking at text as art and we all made some site specific text based art installations within the studios, an old church, as it was rainng outside.

The afternoon took this work to inform making letterpress pieces – a mixture of printing tecniques from blind printing to debossing and straight up letterpressing.

You can see some of the images here

Salisbury Arts Centre

I have been asked to respond to the exhibition ‘The View from Here’ at Salisbury Arts Centre This is what they say about my work.

Aidan Moesby works mostly with text. Its physical manifestation is as important as the words themselves, made into objects or created fleetingly for site-specific installations; isolated words and short phrases draw you up short, engage you in a dialogue, interrogate their context and throw you back on your own resources. Here he will be making a new work as a commissioned response to the other artists’ work and the setting of Salisbury Arts Centre, scattered words moving the viewer through the space physically, visually and psychologically, and in some indirect way substituting (perhaps usurping) the absent aural and written content of delGado and Bruch’s conceptual postcards

Centre for Fine Print Research – Bookmarks

A few years ago I signed up to do a limited edition of 100 bookmarks. Time passes. Then a reminder comes and you have to pull it out the bag. Anyways, I have my 100 bookmarks ready to post off. Hand printed using an old Adana flat bed quarto. I love letterpress. I love the lo-fi way. There is something exquisite about the process, the marks, the individuality and hand craftedness that is imprinted into the paper.

All in a row

Soften

During the Hepworth at Wakefield opening I had the opportunity to show some work. This print is coloured only by the patina of the wood blocks.

Do You Think We Can Talk About This?

I have just installed ‘Do you think we can talk about this?’ at the Centre For Life, Newcastle. It is a collection of pieces which reflect on  the personal and cultural agenda surrounding mental health. It runs for a couple of months. Can we talk about mental health? At once we are fascinated by those perceived as kooky, off beat, crazy and then we tire of them and vilify them and perpetuate the stereotypical images and viewpoints of those living with an enduring mental health condition. I hope we can talk about it, I hope we can get a right good open honest discussion going.

Letterpress. Paper, Acrylic,Text 2010

Brief Statement

A socially engaged text based artist Moesbys’ work is informed through the linguistic and visual imagery we use to create and make sense of the worlds we inhabit. Text based installations explore the conflict within the personal and cultural agendas of our Cultural and Psychological heritage. He utilises a variety of media, technologies and approaches in order to realise the artwork yet the text and its imbued meaning is always paramount

Framing of the Work

Aidan Moesby utilises metaphor to provoke a re-evaluation of what it means to experience psychological conflict. The work references the ‘Personal’ and ‘Cultural’ worlds. It explores the preoccupation with the ‘Pop’ psychology of the disposable ‘low brow’ visual media culture which offers the empty promise of 15 minutes of fame through simulated catharsis.

The work has everything and nothing to do with his own experience of Bipolar Disorder. We all experience the highs, lows and ennui of life. To some extent we have lost our sense of Self and our Integrity. Validation is sought from others rather than from within. We yearn for vicarious fulfilment, the projected phantasy, the glossy dream, the ‘quick fix’ down on ‘Easy Street’. We do not wish to look at or acknowledge our own psychological fragilities, and very often we do not wish to attend to those fragilities of others lest we catch them.

Aidan attempts to explore the frailty of the Human Condition in all its’ imperfect splendour. He mines a rich and complex vein of written and visual language in an effort to gain an understanding and awareness of how we can make sense our place in the worlds we create. Ultimately he acknowledges that we are in a state of constant flux and the work remains to inhabit the often subtle, fragile and dynamic boundary between the conflicted continuum of ‘ease’ and ‘dis-ease’.

Mirror. Text. 2004

First Post – An Overview

These days we live in a 24/7 world that never sleeps. We are saturated by images and text yet both have ceased to have any real meaning. The fuller the diaspora gets the emptier it seems. Maybe it’s not devoid of meaning, maybe communication is changing – the how and the what. Language has always evolved. This is further complicated by digital and social media. I am not a native to this landscape as I was recently informed, I am a digital migrant and I am always playing catch up with a culture that is not my ‘first’ – no matter how early I adopt or how much I try and integrate.  This is illustrated by the comparison of this virtual environment with my passion for Letterpress.

My work is all about meaning, trying to make sense of things. Attempting to come to terms and understand our place in the world and the roles we play within it. Oral and visual imagery is key to this and we each have our personal languages, mediated through memory, experience, personal associations. Our personal heritage. This is further layered by our cultural heritage.

A text – an e-mail – a letter. Each is used differently, the words within each, even if similar mean something different, have a different weight, a different impact. The sender and recipient generally know this and understand the code, the unwritten, unspoken rules of engagement.

I hope this site is a location for dialogue, research, inspiration and work.