Catalog Introduction

Ruth Weisberg

“White Nights, Double Vision: The Fictive Worlds of Wes Christensen and Marina Moevs”

2011

 

 

…Marina Moevs’ paintings often suggest the strange quietude after a terrible catastrophe. The destructive force of a tsunami or a hurricane is revealed by the chaotic forms of wreckage and debris. In ‘Ocean II’, 2004, for example, the beauty of the seascape with its breaking waves is undermined by the jetsam and debris of some immediately preceding cataclysm. Is this a warning about climate change and the increasing frequency of natural disasters or is it a metaphysical questioning of our assumptions about reality? What is extraordinary about Moevs’ paintings is that they take our experience of the ordinary and undermine our assumptions in a haunting and memorable way. For instance, in ‘Interiors II’, 2006, a typical living room is mysteriously flooded, the invading waters mirroring and multiplying the surrounding landscape and transposing inside and outside. Moevs’ mastery of reflected light and her fluid handling of surfaces make her art both a revelation and a warning…