Aidan Moesby :: Text Artist

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

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.