01229 825085
Art Gene, Bath Street, Barrow-in-Furness,
Cumbria, LA14 5TY England, UK
Paul Moss
1975 – 2019
Paul Moss is the only artist to have undertaken both an artists and a curatorial residency at Art Gene. He has worked with us to curate four of our exhibitions; North West Open Prize 2005 and 2007, When We Were Here and International Enquirer. Paul has worked on a wide range of interesting projects (both in his own right) and alongside architects and designers; on high profile public spaces and new housing developments in the North East (see below) which aligned his practice perfectly to Art Gene’s research remit: ‘The role of artists and architects in Re-Visioning the regeneration of the social, natural and built environment.’
Biography
Paul Moss is an artist and curator. His artworks include drawing, painting, installation, sculpture, performance, new media, and cross art form collaborations.
He has developed and presented artworks in a wide variety of situations including exhibitions, temporary commissions, and residencies since graduating from Newcastle University in 1998. In 2003 he was Artist in Residence at Durham Cathedral and the works made during that time were part of his first major solo exhibition Push Me Pull Me held at Baltic Centre of Contemporary Art, Gateshead in June 2004.
Past activity includes a year-long Arts Council funded residency with Newcastle based architects I.D. Partnerships during which he explored relationships between architectural processes and his own practice. Projects he was involved in included The Baltic Quays redevelopment in Gateshead where he contributed to the public art strategy, and Staiths South Bank the ambitious low cost/high design housing development instigated by Wayne Hemmingway. Moss works from his studio in Newcastle and is currently developing projects in the UK and internationally. Previous exhibitions include Remain in Light, at Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art where he installed a 36 foot Danger Painting made using red and white hazard tape, Playing Fields at The Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle, and Look To This Day at Castlefield Gallery, Manchester.
Paul Moss, one of several drawings created during his Residency at Art Gene which consider regeneration
Moss is also co-director of Workplace an artist led organisation based in the North East of England. Workplace have opened Workplace Art Gallery in Gateshead Town Centre and have recently released a publication showcasing 12 of the most exciting artists living and working in the area. Past Workplace projects include art fairs, group exhibitions, and live events.
For Paul Moss architecture, the built environment and urban sociology are key interests. His work is best described as installation. He uses a wide range of media usually selected in response to a particular environment and includes both the obviously handmade and pieces fabricated and finished by specialist manufacturers. He is interested in communication, particularly through everyday materials that we take for granted and their relationship to architectural features within institutional spaces.
In his ongoing Dangerman works he is exploring the latent and persuasive language of urban material, particularly red and white hazard tape, and its ability to signal both warning and institutionalised incompetence, simultaneously preventing accidents and creating chaos in our public spaces and built environments.
As artist in residence at Durham Cathedral he chose to investigate the apparatus of communication in the church by focusing on specific architectural features. This resulted in a sculpture fabricated from Formica Laminate and Oak Veneer called An Artists Pulpit, the footprint bases of a cathedral pillars re-worked as a series of Mobile Dance Floors, and the language of a stained glass window reflected in a work called Megamensa which resembles both a mind game and disco glitter ball.
New work including Rah Rah Rah, a development from the Mobile Dancefloors, flirts with ideas of ‘civic’ sculpture in relation to both popular and political culture. The work was made during the recent American election campaign and refers to a pair of cheerleaders’ pompoms.
The use of pre-existing architectural frameworks and their transformation into temporary structures that can be experienced both privately and in public is central to Moss’ current research. At Art Gene he will continue to investigate these themes and in particular will challenge and investigate his approach to composition both inside and outside of the studio and gallery context.
External Links
Lower image: Now Here’s Your Chance, by Paul Moss, in When We Were Here, exhibition in the Art Gene Gallery
