John Moran
Kunstenaar

John Moran

Lid sinds 2021
9000 Gent, Belgium

John Moran is a politically and socially engaged hot glass sculptor, mixed media artist, co-founder and operator at Gent Glas, and all around nice guy. He is an American currently living and working in Ghent, Belgium.

As a storyteller, my work is constructed from a series of anecdotes, references, and experiences. While I do draw ties to American pop culture, politics, and social issues, I do not do this arbitrarily. I attempt to illustrate how I see the barrage of consumerism, religion, and politics colliding with depictions of social injustice, secular beliefs, and popular culture. I myself am a product of all of these things; I am American and America was founded on dissent. To paraphrase Picasso: my work is a collection of lies, hopefully helping the viewer realize the truth[1]. Though for me the truth is not absolute, it is simply how I see the world. It is not necessarily an attempt at subversion, but more an attempt to reconcile, and in a way celebrate, the absurdity and hypocrisy of society.

I strive to achieve this through chronic appropriation, not of imagery in the same sense as Richard Prince or Andy Warhol, but of ideas. I am not as interested in using the depictions of the Pieta or the Presidents, it is their auras I want to use, all of the baggage surrounding them, every preconceived notion and stereotype that already exists, and then I want to smash them together with conflicting or separate notions and stereotypes where I see similar attributes.    

It may not seem autobiographical, but my experiences and observations are the genesis of my ideas. Each piece is a reaction to a specific event, but is not an illustration of it. I pull from everything around me. My own political and religious views, art, books, movies, family, and popular culture culminate into layers of seemingly random references, multiple components, and a visual overload that mimics our daily experience.

“Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth.” Attributed to Pablo Picasso

Deze site gebruikt cookies om het gebruik van de website te vereenvoudigen. Raadplaag ons cookie beleid voor meer informatie over cookies en hoe u deze kan blokkeren indien u dit zou wensen. Door verder te surfen geeft u aan dat u akkoord gaat met ons beleid hieromtrent.