Ahead of an exhibition five years in the making, Dunfermline artist Ian Moir sits down in his studio with Ieuan Williams to discuss the themes explored in a provocative showcase of works depicting the moral burdens we all must face...
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FOR thirteen days the world waited as leaders negotiated for the promise of tomorrow.
Robert F. Kennedy’s (RFK) memoir of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis is a tense account of potential nuclear devastation as the United States and the Soviet Union exchanged compromises to avert disaster, with the Attorney General’s documentation of his brother, President John F. Kennedy, and his deliberations, among the voices brought to the page.
Collectively, they were just men, flesh and bone like you and I, gathering around tables and making decisions they were entrusted to make on behalf of millions from their elected positions of power.
RFK, four years post-Crisis, delivered his ‘Day of Affirmation’ speech in South Africa, remarking that for every time a man stands up for an ideal or act to improve the lives of others, human history is shaped for the better. “He sends forth a tiny ripple of hope,” he said, a ripple capable of breaking down the “mightiest wall of oppression and resistance”. In its simplicity, goodness in the face of evil.
This dynamic and how the choices of an individual can alter the trajectory of a lifetime is at the centre of an upcoming exhibition in Dunfermline, with the use of paintings, death masks and reimagined literature – including Thirteen Days by RFK - aiming to provoke discussions surrounding morality and its outcomes through history.
Good and Evil has taken Ian Moir, founding director and gallery curator of arts venue Fire Station Creative, five years to complete and is, “the culmination of my life’s work as an artist,” he exclusively revealed to the Press in his private studio ahead of the project’s launch within the historic Pittencrieff House.
The exhibition is not designed to shock but instead inspire conversations as the eyes of visitors take in a collection of up to 10 unseen paintings and 15 death masks; casts of plaster preserving the appearance of world-renowned figures such as Napoleon, Winston Churchill, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Voltaire, to name a few.
“I’m fascinated by the human condition and the purpose of life,” he told me.
“When you look at the masks closely, you realise these characters are neither gods nor demons, but mortals, native to a certain place and time. As individuals with freewill, they made choices, and in so doing advanced civilisation or attacked it. You become conscious, thereby, of mankind’s terrifying capacity for good and evil, creativity and destruction.
“These masks are there to tell us about ourselves. We never know the limits of our own potential and I believe it’s naive to think otherwise.”
He continued: “With every death mask that I have purchased, I was reminded of this huge, legendary or historic character being just one person. I understand that some people would find it morbid, but I think it’s encouraging to think that one person did these incredible things, good or evil. You then grasp the responsibility in being your own individual walking along the timeline of your own life and the moral burden upon you. Your actions can ripple out well beyond your ability to predict the impact you are having on the world.”
His emotional reaction and acquisition of these faces from the past came whilst working on arguably the exhibition’s primary draw and genesis, a seven-foot-wide painting in homage to a 16th century masterpiece depicting the seven sins in hell, by an ‘Unknown Portuguese Master'.
Moir’s has a similar composition and is true to style, but he has progressed the piece through time with the inclusion of modern technology whilst demonstrating that now, 500 years on from the original, the sins remain present within human nature.
“I was determined to paint my own version of the tableaux to show that man is still just as avaricious, lustful and angry as he ever was!”, the 47-year-old commented.
“Painting is an old person’s game as you do get better as you get older,” he claims.
“I wasn’t a complete artist, or as a painter in terms of my full skillset and confidence, until the past five years.
“I’m not saying my paintings in the past have been bad or wrong, but they have been a bit dispirit, and I was trying new things and changing things, learning what worked and what didn’t. They have converged now in one exhibition; all these different techniques and ideas.
“I’m very conscious of being a pasticheur as I like borrowing from different genres in history and pulling them together to create a new aesthetic and new meaning.”
His new painting depicts the Antichrist as an oversized infant, surrounded by miniature adults, fully naked, engaged in sin and subjected to various kinds of torture, and as such parental guidance is advised for this showcase of works.
Given the subject matter, he is prepared for what he expects to be a broad range of reactions.
“You can’t please all of the people all of the time,” the prize-winning artist states.
“I do look forward to people being able to experience the exhibition, and I’m interested to see it myself - to see not only how it looks but also how it feels. Does it knit together well? Is this an interesting experience?
“What motivates me as an artist, what drives me, is showing people something that they’ve never seen before.
“To use a mask as a metaphor; people can hide behind a mask, and it anaesthetizes them to the effects of the world. We build up a barrier between the mind and the world, but art can puncture that barrier and make you feel something again or to experience something new and set thoughts in motion.”
Moir, who in 2011 won the City of Glasgow Prize at the Royal Glasgow Institute and has exhibited both in Europe and in the US, anticipates taking the project to other UK venues with further additions upon the completion of its run in Dunfermline, which is being supported by Carnegie Dunfermline Trust.
Pittencrieff House is the historic setting he wished for the show to stand in, with the close proximity of each piece further strengthening the connection between them.
“I would love if people were inspired to read some of the books I’ve painted as well”, he stressed, also adding that reaching the stage of exhibiting is a success in and of itself.
(Image: Ian Moir) “There’s a painting of a book, Hiroshima, by John Hersey, who was the first person to report on the after-effects of the bombing of Hiroshima. His account was serialised in a newspaper, but it was later published by Penguin Classics, and for the world that event must only have existed in the abstract; until you read the effect it had on people and the stories told... you can't read a book like that without having a sense of contemplating the good and evil forces embedded in the patterns that make up human existence.”
• Good and Evil is open to the public at Pittencrieff House on weekends from 10am to 5pm throughout February, with tickets costing £5 from the exhibition’s website: www.goodandevil.info
• Parental guidance is advised.