We recently connected with Andy Moerlein and have shared our conversation below.

Andy, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

The project I am working on is currently in an exhibition titled: Ten Thousand Labors.

My premise here is that men are always expected to be “Age Defying Superheros.”

As I add years to my very physical life, I am finding my limitations creeping inward ever so slowly. As a sculptor of large work, my pieces demand a wearing and persistent physicality. In my art I confront ideas and challenge different media – using my stamina and strength, my mind and memories.

I contemplate the endless and seemingly pointless things I do as an artist – as I meander around and try to process what I am experiencing. I work to understand myself in relationship with the greater world around me and it seems the goal posts are always moving. A toil without end. Yet I relish the work. Perhaps as much as my results. It is a joy to work with my hands and mind every day.

As maturity becomes evident, and those about me age and die, I am confronting a stark vulnerability that I have lived my life rather oblivious to.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Where did this project start?

There are many references for this body of work.

I visited Vienna in February 2022 and indulged in the turn of the century Vienna Secession art: Gustav Klimt, Josef Hoffman, Max Klinger, Otto Wagner, Friedrich Konig .

I was also thrilled to take a deeper dive into Klimt’s pupil, Egon Schiele’s. A huge volume of Schiele’s best work was on view throughout the Vienna museums.

I also saw inspiring exhibits of contemporary artists who had continued Schiele’s explorations of the self-portrait. His unsparing depictions of the body were a radical departure from the cult of beauty fostered by Klimt and other Secession artists. Many of the artists I know and love showed how modernism pulled back the curtain and peered behind the self-staging scenery of ideas of beauty, similarity and perfection: Jim Dine, VALIE EXPORT, Cindy Sherman, Maria Lassnig, Robert Arneson, Antony Gormley, and Francesca Woodman. I adored the brave objectification of the body. In this age of social media, what could be more appropriate than the honest probing eye of the artist turned on one’s self?

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Frankly, at the start of this exploration, I struggled with my own modesty. I drew masks and settled on clay reliefs as a medium. As I needed better renderings, I shot self-portraits. When I needed impossible positions, I collaged photocopies together. Through the hours of work, I became immune to my self exposure. My collages became more than references and I recognized them as works on their own.

For most of my career I have been immersed in the study of Scholars Rocks and Bonsai. I could not escape the idea of shaped bodies, like groomed/redesigned trees and modified stones. I dredged up a lingering image from art studies in Paul Klee’s series of etchings (1902-05) including: The Virgin (The Dreaming Virgin).

Thus began my first few reliefs. From the reliefs, photos, collages came drawings with ink and brush color.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

The physical challenges of being a sculptor are unavoidable as I grow into midcareer. I have become fascinated by culture’s portrayal of labor. In London I saw a lovely print; Laboring by Moonlight. By Asai, one of the first modern Japanese artists to embrace European-style painting, it shows three barge-haulers dragging their unseen burden step-by-step to its destination. One turns to look at the viewer, as though to assert his independence or personal dignity.

This work and the drawings of field workers by Van Gogh all formed a backdrop to this body of work.

Contact Info:

• Website: andymoerlein.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andymoerlein/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/andymoerlein
• Youtube: @andymoerlein

Image Credits
Photo Credit: Brian Wilson