Artist profile of Teresa Moran by Lynda Cookson
Published in "Cork Now" September 2006
There's a house high up on a mountain on the Sheep's Head Peninsula overlooking the breathtaking views of Bantry Bay in County Cork, and it's full of peaceful paintings by the live-wire who is Teresa Moran. The sun was high when we began photographing her work and by the time hunger took over and a light supper was laid on the table, the scarlet sun was sinking behind the hills across the bay and I was dizzy with the details of her life of travel and art.
Teresa cannot remember a time when she didn't paint or draw, using watercolour and crayons as children usually do. She took extra classes on Saturdays with a talented nun and even won a competition "... something to do with peace" she vaguely recalls. "I would have liked to go to art college but career guidance was sadly lacking when I left school and I only heard talk about being an air hostess or a secretary. I took myself off for a year and au paired for a family in Paris. I was only sixteen going on seventeen at the time. France was good to me. I took an intensive course in French at the Sorbonne. The course also covered culture, political law, geography and art, and every week we would go to the Louvre, or somewhere else, and study a particular artist, then go on to the museum. It was an absolute joy for me and I loved the exhibitions. The family were lovely too. They took me skiing and to a chateau just outside Paris where I spent hours drawing in the grounds."
When she returned to Ireland she signed up for European Studies at NIHE (which is now known as the University of Limerick). She wanted to study languages but in the first year they were taught business subjects which included marketing. Teresa found she loved the logic and fun of marketing. She switched courses and graduated after four years of study, coming first in her year. During her degree years, at the age of nineteen, she spent eight months in Germany with the German Academic Exchange Service who also give grants to artists, musicians and writers, so again she was exposed to art and artists. She also took a year off to go and live and work in Sydney in Australia, staying with friends of her mother's and working in a small electrical company. She says: "It was a fun job and I came back with savings!"
After qualifying she worked in England for two and a half years before taking a one year teacher training course in London and attending life drawing classes at the same time. She returned to Ireland and taught marketing in Dundalk for three yars, doing oil paintings in her spare time. And then she was off again!
"My sister went to work in Abu Dhabi in the Middle East so I went too and taught marketing there for five years. After that I spent seven years marketing the college itself. When I came back to Ireland during my holidays I went on one-week art courses in the Burren and Donegal.
There were some very good international art teachers who came to Abu Dhabi from Europe so I did lots of night classes and was continually being asked to do desert landscapes for people. I worked with oils, silk painting and batik, which I learned out there.
The more I painted the more I realised I wanted to develop and go back to the groundwork, studying the techniques of the old masters. I decided to take six months off and go to Italy. My six months became two years! I started with three months intensive Italian, went to drawing classes in the Angel Academy for six weeks and also went to life studies at the Florence Academy of Art in the evenings. I graduated two years later from the Institute for Art and Restoration, where the whole course was taught in Italian. Some of the teachers didn't speak English at all."
During her two years in Florence she studied different aspects of the old masters' techniques. There was a heavy emphasis on drawing, and they covered printing, art history, law and frescos. The students were taken to various churches to study frescos and their own attempts had to be completed in a day, from plastering the wall to painting, Teresa grinned - "It was the best two years in my life. It was like a dream walking along the cobblestones thinking that Michelangelo was here ... just amazing to be surrounded by so much beauty and to go into any church and see works of art. All the senses were stimulated with the sounds of the bells, the language and the food. Since then I have been painting non-stop and doing lots of commissions."
While in Italy she used her time well, traveling to places like Ravenna and Ferrara to study mosaics in the churches, and painters like Alfred Sisley whose work was being exhibited there. She also took the time to spend her holidays in Spain, Germany and Switzerland.
Teresa has often wondered about who inspired her. She loves the movement and the bright yellows against bright blues of van Gogh's paintings; she was influenced by the Swiss artist Segantini's vibrant colours and the way he puts angels in amongst the landscape in a surprising way; the delicacy of Leonardo da Vinci's paintings of hands and feet and the beauty of the faces of his subjects; and Puvis de Chavannes who inspired so many people who seem to be more famous than he is.
Her medium of choice is oil on paper, canvas or board although she does use acrylics and inks for various techniques, bringing in tempera on wood for iconography and studies of the old masters. She likes a smooth surface and uses brushes and her fingers to get the effect she wants. The old masters would often make the surface even flatter by tapping the paint. Teresa likes to paint landscapes and has a strong bond with the landscape of olden times with no modern buildings included.
Her work can be found in galleries in Schull in Couty Cork, Cungarvan in County Waterford, The Graphic Studio in Dublin, and Keuruu Musem in central Finland.
http://www.artbyteresamoran.com/
http://www.halosandwings.com/
http://www.artbyteresamoran.com/
http://www.halosandwings.com/
My art website : https://lyndacookson.blogspot.fr/
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