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Chris Moore

Chris Moore, Introduced Species, 2022

Forged, fabricated steel, galvanised, copper paint. H2500-3600 x W1200-4000 x D80mm.

Lynn Margulis once wrote, “Life on earth is more like a verb.” As an evolutionary theorist and cellular-molecular biologist, she spent much of her own life observing the behavioural patterns of other lifeforms. She witnessed among them an unerring tendency toward greater diversity and symbiotic relationships with neighbouring beings, both big and small.

Human beings have been a force of great transformation within earth’s natural systems, though largely, this has been with a mind to homogenising environments to serve their immediate needs. Aotearoa’s natural landscape is one example of this, with species brought by settlers over the centuries having a dramatic effect on endemic and indigenous species, often resulting in decreased biodiversity.

Chris Moore’s grove of galvanised steel sculptures references this history of Introduced Species, and their enormous impact upon the land. But, in their transience, they also gesture to a way of living upon it with a lighter tread, exercising caution and care in our interactions so that they might be a force of reciprocity and regeneration like those of most other lifeforms.

CHRIS MOORE

Lives and works in Auckland

Chris Moore is a visual artist with over twenty years of experience and an expansive repertoire of technical skills to show for it, including in design, oil painting and portraiture, and blacksmithing and bronze casting.

His studies in the traditional methods of the latter two took him to Europe for several years, after which he returned to New Zealand and set up a studio space in Oratia, West Auckland. Bringing the metals to life via an intensive process of forging, heating and shaping motivate Moore’s work, with which he aims to bring an unexpected lightness and texture to the material.

He has created work for several sculpture festivals and public and private commissions, and in his spare time is also a keen landscaper and his time in the garden often inspires the natural forms of his work.

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