b. Santa Monica, California, 1985

The synthesis of colors and interlocking forms that has come to characterize my paintings may be unsettling in its density of information.
This is my intention.
My paintings are however, an abbreviated and concentrated version of the reality to which they refer. The reality I have chosen as subject matter is our societys omnipresent loci of consumerism, and the individual commodities that fill them. The focus of my interest and paintings lies in the way the subjects formal aspects are intended to communicate to the consumer, and the effected environments. Much of what we understand as urban is the product of these environments, which exist only as a result of this market. The economy forms nearly every visual aspect of our environment. My painting seeks to address specifically the deliberately constructed organization of actual markets, whether, mini, super, international, or metaphorical.
My work investigates how our society assigns significance by deconstructing the superficial signs and symbols: the constructed vehicles of decaying meaning that advertising utilizes, and consumers seem to instinctively understand. Left with their remnants and general formal qualities, I can emphasize and analyze the lush physical and symbolic constructs that consumer culture surrounds us with through my paintings. I feel that this treatment is especially relevant when depicting these environments that so many of us live within, and become accustomed to and unaware of. Presenting the information in an abstracted form more clearly reveals the formal elements at the root of our aesthetic vulnerabilities, indicating our cultures desires and interests. And although often depicting convenience stores, these are not convenient paintings.
Advertising, architecture, fashion, cultural and social symbols and stereotypes prove themselves images deeply ingrained in our visual consciousness. Although the constructive forms in my paintings are equally superficial, often even graphic, they are intentionally hand-painted and thus inevitably sensual, attributes that often only lavishly applied oil paint endows. I want my work to explore the sensory explosion of imagery that defines our visual vocabulary as a society, to both chart and indulge in these sumptuous excesses.
My influences include Italian Futurists Giacomo Balla and Fortunato Depero, and also particularly the American artist Stuart Davis. Working from life, their uses of abstracted forms reflect concentrated expressions of strong excitement and anxiety about transformed political, technological and economic environments- all quite relevant to present America
Plays of color are essential to the subject matter and structure of these paintings, and are often the genesis of my interest. The impact that manipulation of color can have upon viewers is truly something to be mastered, and is something I have dedicated myself to as an artist. Color is linked to, if not the core etymology of the language of advertising and consumption, and thus more than appropriate to adopt for my own dialect. This being said, my painting is an ongoing dialectic between these influences, art theory, and the physicality of the work and its media. This work, especially within the context of a commercial gallery, invites a necessary and conscious comparison between the aforementioned consumerist venues, and the contemporary art market. However, this commentary is at heart an expression of my genuine and overwhelmingly momentous passion to explore the world around me through paint.

Allison G. Moore