Allen Moe : Artist Talk 2024

Allen Moe lives as close to the earth as possible, often sleeping in the open under the stars. His new work consists of various castings; the waters edge, dried mud, desert plants. The terrain that surrounds him. Constellations are sometimes embedded on the surfaces of these castings. He makes pure hand shaped pots that are saw dust fired. Allen Moe brings parts of this world to us as an artist, an explorer and a scientist, an observer of natural phenomena. As if bearing gifts.
ALLEN MOE: statement on work
"Using silicone caulking I make molds of patterns in nature that interest me. These are negative records which I then take to the studio and cast as positives out of cement. It’s a process much like photography although instead of recording light I am recording physical presence.
In these days of visual and virtual overwhelm I think it’s important to be reminded of the physicality of the world around usI am focused on the patterns of accumulation and disintegration and the unseen forces that create them - the ripples of beach sand, the way a cactus disintegrates or clam ejects settles onto mounds - even the way a box of screws settles into place when dumped out onto a plate.
This interest extends to the distribution patterns of stars which i have been painstakingly drawing for years.I’ve always sensed a connection between my castings of small events on the surface of the earth to the feeling I get when looking into a deep night sky filled with stars and the images coming back from the recent telescopes have confirmed that sensibility by revealing the underlying structure of the universe to look exactly like the much smaller patterns of occurrences on earth - blobs of drifting algae, mud cracks, fields of sand. The underlying universal force seems to be gravity and it seems to work the same on all scales.
This show celebrates the union of my years of star drawings with my earth castings, finally bringing everything together."