Robert Moya's From Island to Island
at the Hui No'eau Visual Arts Center
- Maui Island Currents, March 1998
The exhibit of the works of painter Robert Moya from Puerto Rico currently being shown at the Hui No'eau is a special gift to our community. Maui's developing partnership of institutions, artists, patrons and the general public makes clear that Maui has a passion for the visual arts. As our beautiful island shares its aloha with us, we celebrate it in our visual arts. Maui's art community is beginning to blossom.
The theme of this show, From Island to Island, is well-chosen. Many ties with Puerto Rico exist on Maui; our sugar agriculture, the influences of the paniolo and the Spanish, the rainforest, the ocean, beach and island life. These connections are very compelling for island cultures to explore.
Moya's art comes from a passion with the paint itself and with the people he portrays. In his teaching, he talks of caressing the line, of giving a halo of light, of hearing the painting and doing with it what it wishes... Moya enjoys the challenges of water, the rainforest, and the fleeting quality of childhood.
In Robert Moya's work, one can see the sure handling of color issues, of value, and definition within a greater abstract concept. Here is an artist who loves the fleeting moment captured in families at the beach, on the front porch, with the family dog, coloring, riding horses, and walking the streets of downtown San Juan where the painter makes his headquarters. The involvement of the viewer is immediate because the colors draw one's eye into dialogue as much as does the honest subjects he portrays.
Moya's art comes from a passion with the paint itself and with the people he portrays. In his teaching, he talks of caressing the line, of giving a halo of light, of hearing the painting and doing with it what it wishes. Tremendous respect for the subject matter, the medium and the fleeting quality of life itself gives his work passion. This is painting that conveys the sensibilities of the painter. His subject matter is water, people (especially young girls), dogs, homes, and people playing and riding horses.
Moya enjoys the challenges of water, the rainforest, and the fleeting quality of childhood. He loves dogs as a subject, and says they make great models.."A dog will stare at you all day long," he reports. He paints subjects like the passing of the agricultural way of life, of people at rest and in repose. Yet there is nothing nostalgic or romantic in these paintings. They are honest and the subject is immortalized with Moya's perceptive rendering in oils or acrylic.Robert Moya explains that he loves to look through people's old photographs while his wife is antiquing in the shops of Marblehead, Massachusetts, where they spend part of each year. He is likely to be rummaging through collections of old postcards or photo albums where he might find inspiration for his next painting. In a workshop he gave at the Hui No'eau Visual Arts Center over the weekend, Moya showed examples of some of the paintings resulting from his rummaging. In one, a man is seen in the window of a movie ticket counter, with a poster about the coming movie below him, and the reflection of the store across the street in the window. ROBERTO MOYA TEACHER A teacher who is compassionate in every way, Robert Moya looks at each person's work equally and carefully, seeing the inner painter in each case. He communicates beautifully and all in his workshop felt gratified to be in the presence of a distinguished painter, printmaker and teacher.
He warns of the need to use the left side of the brain and to ignore the thinking and analyzing. He advises working on several paintings at once to avoid working a painting to death. Leave it when you begin to stare and wonder what to do. He has great respect for the painting and what it has to say. He validates painting as a medium and definitely is at the service of his medium. He uses color, but he is a conveyer of the line and the gesture. Moya has an attitude of respect for the painting that has developed from decades of service to the medium. Just as a composer creates unique music that only she or he can create, Moya lets the painting come through him. He knows the painting has something to say, and he is enough of a master to let what it says work its way through him. He shares his techniques freely, but it takes a very experienced artist who can hear the message of the painting and who has enough technical skill and mastery to let it come through. He explains that value is the key to credibility rather than color. If the value is right the color will be believed.
INFLUENCES Moya is experimental, bold, and exploratory. His resume reveals a varied background of accomplishment in the fields of printmaking, painting and even computer-generated art which he has taught as artist-in-residence at the University of Puerto Rico. His work is part of collections and museums throughout the world. Moya is a colorist who comes from an abstract, colorfield background. He was influenced by the Bay Area Painters of the 1960s. Richard Diebenkorn and Nathan Olivera are refered to in his work, which is heroic in its quiet glimpses into life.
Moya enjoys the challenges of water, the rainforest, and the fleeting quality of childhood. He loves dogs as a subject, and says they make great models.."A dog will stare at you all day long," he reports. He paints subjects like the passing of the agricultural way of life, of people at rest and in repose. Yet there is nothing nostalgic or romantic in these paintings. They are honest and the subject is immortalized with Moya's perceptive rendering in oils or acrylic.Robert Moya explains that he loves to look through people's old photographs while his wife is antiquing in the shops of Marblehead, Massachusetts, where they spend part of each year. He is likely to be rummaging through collections of old postcards or photo albums where he might find inspiration for his next painting. In a workshop he gave at the Hui No'eau Visual Arts Center over the weekend, Moya showed examples of some of the paintings resulting from his rummaging. In one, a man is seen in the window of a movie ticket counter, with a poster about the coming movie below him, and the reflection of the store across the street in the window. ROBERTO MOYA TEACHER A teacher who is compassionate in every way, Robert Moya looks at each person's work equally and carefully, seeing the inner painter in each case. He communicates beautifully and all in his workshop felt gratified to be in the presence of a distinguished painter, printmaker and teacher.
He warns of the need to use the left side of the brain and to ignore the thinking and analyzing. He advises working on several paintings at once to avoid working a painting to death. Leave it when you begin to stare and wonder what to do. He has great respect for the painting and what it has to say. He validates painting as a medium and definitely is at the service of his medium. He uses color, but he is a conveyer of the line and the gesture. Moya has an attitude of respect for the painting that has developed from decades of service to the medium. Just as a composer creates unique music that only she or he can create, Moya lets the painting come through him. He knows the painting has something to say, and he is enough of a master to let what it says work its way through him. He shares his techniques freely, but it takes a very experienced artist who can hear the message of the painting and who has enough technical skill and mastery to let it come through. He explains that value is the key to credibility rather than color. If the value is right the color will be believed.
INFLUENCES Moya is experimental, bold, and exploratory. His resume reveals a varied background of accomplishment in the fields of printmaking, painting and even computer-generated art which he has taught as artist-in-residence at the University of Puerto Rico. His work is part of collections and museums throughout the world. Moya is a colorist who comes from an abstract, colorfield background. He was influenced by the Bay Area Painters of the 1960s. Richard Diebenkorn and Nathan Olivera are refered to in his work, which is heroic in its quiet glimpses into life.