The Magic City is known as a place of excess: where glitter, rhinestones, tie-dye, loud color and louder music never seem to fall out of style. There are artists in Miami that have followed in this outrageous trail through their respective bodies of work. One artist whose work has proven to be a marked reversal of that aesthetic is Emmett Moore.
Moore's quiet, but turbulent, sculptural works have captured a part of Miami that is seldom discussed: its moments of melancholy, streaks of futurist architecture, an obsession with postmodern design and a dependence on sleek, minimal interiors to counteract a raging lifestyle. His work primarily documents the shifts between form and function: can a utilitarian object become or exist as an object admired? Moore's dedicated work ethic is rooted in a firm command of both ancient drafting methods (multiple incarnations of grids hang throughout his studio) and 3D digital rendering programs. The nearly invisible border that divides the objective and subjective in a handmade work is eroded further in Moore's unusual chairs, tables, mobiles and freestanding sculptures. Surfaces are merely gateways to extended conversations about how and why things are produced in their own way. Each curve, each plane has a particular intention within the ultimate design of an object. When it's completed, it is merely the trigger for a dialogue on its relationship to other objects, other artworks and, naturally, us.
Emmett Moore was born in 1988 in Miami. He attended high school at Design and Architecture Senior High. He received his BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 2010. His work has been presented at non-profit institutions including the Miami Art Museum, The Patricia and Philip Frost Art Museum, Locust Projects and at the Barbara Gellman Gallery at the Museum of the Rhode Island School of Design. He has exhibited works in Miami at Gallery Diet, Primary Projects, OHWOW and The Standard Miami. Moore's work has been featured in publications such as The Miami Herald, The Miami Rail, Cultured Magazine, HOUSE (Soho House Magazine) and ArtLurker. Moore lives and works in Miami.
