In making artwork, Michael Moore attempts to take traditional subject matter and personalize them, approaching each painting with an eye towards both modernity and timelessness. His paintings are a record of a point of view, born of a desire to elevate a personal interpretation of the 21st century cultural zeitgeist for critical engagement.

Michael’s approach to painting is inspired by his mentors, who have taught him not to paint beautiful things, but rather to paint things beautifully. To elevate the everyday through the care and craftsmanship of successful artmaking is among his guiding principles.

Michael’s painting often deals with the tensions of sexuality, identity, longing, and shame. The goal of his artmaking is to engage with these concepts, and rather than fetishize them, to honor and humanize them . Each work, while painted from a place of personal experience and observation, is meant to allow enough ambiguity and space for the viewer to connect and ascribe their own relational value to the work. For the viewer to land in the place between narration and constructing meaning– to intuit the emotion in the work– is the goal for how each image should be understood.