The Velvet Arena is the condensed result of over three years work, in which Moore’s attention became increasingly pared down and focused. In this final series of photographs, he presents himself, – with all the ambiguity of his initial attraction intact-as an estranged artist looking for clues: a heat withered flower, a hand caressing leather, a blonde hair snagged on dark quality cloth. All tell tale signs, blown up and out of proportion. Light has revealed to him , in intense fragments, an environment of its own language of gesture and code of reference – its own secret mysteries. These are the intimate social spaces where deals are struck and confidences are broken, plush units of power and influence sequestered away from th eunimaginable reaches of the city. Here, in these warm rooms and galleries, a trade in discreet insults can flourish. Th is serious business, careers are at stake, yet rarely are voices raised. Rather, communication is enacted through the elaborate movements of a heavily ritualised game.

Moore’s picture’s dwell on the qualities of skin, especially in relation to the texture of clothes. Skin is translucent when it catches the light and here its veined and creased flesh tones ;loom out of darkness as if for medical inspection. Hands are particularly disembodied in this respect and are a leitmotif of Moore’s series. They are important signs of the sensual, of touch, of affection, collusion and betrayal. In one picture a hand is clasped around the back of a brown leather jacket. The way it is lodged there , spotted by Moore’s flash gently pulling down the folds of leather, hints at a clinging tension,while the worn patch on the jacket around it suggest that this i s after all, a gesture of habit. In another similiarly minimal picture a male hand rests idly alongside the bulk of a suited figure. Again flesh is palpable and we sense a latent power- dormant but threatening- in the lay of the hand, the cut of the cloth.

• ‹ prev
• 1
• 2
• next ›