S2, EP.12: Mario Moore
Mario Moore | Headshot credit: Danielle Eliska (IG: @danielle.eliska)
On our season 2 finale we interview Detroit-based artist Mario Moore. Exploring the facets of social, political, and historical issues, Moore’s art practice centers around black identity, culture, and history. Through his stunning paintings, drawings, and sculptures, a visual narrative emerges both artistically and academically. The artist meticulously focuses on and captures everyday figures who represent a broad spectrum of ideas that not only engages viewers but leaves them intrigued.
Moore sits down with us for a 2-hour interview to discuss the importance of capturing history through his research process, his artistic influences, and what he wants viewers to take away from his work.
My Labor — 2023, oil on linen, 48 x 48 inches
Mario Moore, a Detroit native, received a BFA from the College for Creative Studies, Detroit, MI in 2009 and an MFA in Painting from the Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT in 2013. He is a recent Kresge Arts Fellow (2023) and a recipient of the prestigious Princeton Hodder Fellowship (2018-2019). He also has been awarded residencies at Duke University, Josef and Annie Albers Foundation, Fountainhead, and Knox College. Moore’s work is in the permanent collections of but not limited to the Detroit Institute of Arts, Princeton University Art Museum and The Studio Museum in Harlem.
Moore’s work has been widely exhibited, including at the Smart Museum of Art, Chicago, IL; Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, MI; Jeffrey Deitch Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Arthur Roger Gallery, New Orleans, LA; The Cleveland Museum of Art, and Colby College Museum of Art. His most recent major exhibitions Mario Moore / Enshrined: Presence & Preservation, the largest survey of Moore’s work to date, opened at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit in June 2021 and at the California African American Museum (CAAM) in March 2022, also his first solo exhibition on the West Coast. Moore’s current traveling museum exhibition Revolutionary Times is showing at the Flint Institute of Arts and will travel to the Grand Rapids Art Museum in April 2024.
Mario Moore currently works and lives in Detroit, MI.
King Louis XIV’s Desire — 2023, oil on linen, 48 x 48 inches
1701— 2023, oil on copper, 18 x 12 inches
“When I think about my work and making my work, it’s about access. How do I open up access to as many people as possible? And for me, what that looks like is for people to look at people who look like them.”
Birth of the Cool — 2023, oil on linen, 72 x 48 inches
It Can All be so Fleeting — 2024, oil on linen, 55 x 38 inches, 2024
