The language of Moir’s large-scale, immersive work has developed through translating watercolour paintings into ‘pitch-rolled’ prints. This process involves emulating an etching press, either outdoors or on her studio floor, and utilising a pitch-roller as printing tool. Works are painted with watercolours on to sheets of polypropylene plastic before being impressed onto damp calico fabric to create a confluence of painting and print. Moir was drawn to printmaking by the feeling of facilitating a series of events rather than working directly on to a substrate. Printing with the pitch-roller deepens this exploration, pushing the limitations of the monotype technique and using the whole body to work the print. Unlike the controlled environment of the studio press, this method is imprecise, unpredictable and leaves traces of the process in folds, creases and printed textures in the fabric. Once dry, some of the works develop into drawings, as shaded areas and fine lines are added with colour pencils.

 

Amber Moir was born in 1990 in South Africa. Moir graduated from Stellenbosch University with a degree in Fine Arts in 2014. She returned in 2017 from two years of working and living on Kyushu Island, Japan, and currently lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa. 

 

To date, Moir has had four solo exhibitions, most recently Only the River at Reservoir Projects in Cape Town, South Africa. Between 2019 - 2021, Moir presented Composition by Field (2021), Along the Line (2020) and In Praise of Shadows (2019), all at Salon 91 in Cape Town. Selected group exhibitions include Falling Awake at The Fourth Gallery in Cape Town and To Whom It May Concern at Salon 91, Cape Town, both in 2021; Peep Show, an artist curated exhibition presented online in 2020; Spier Light Art Festival, Stellenbosch, South Africa in 2019; Proof at SMAC Gallery in Stellenbosch in 2018, SS17 at Gallery MOMO in Cape Town in 2017 and Domestic Odyssey at AVA Gallery in Cape Town in 2015.

 

Moir has participated in various group presentations at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair, South Africa; Sydney Contemporary Art Fair, Australia; and the Turbine Art Fair, South Africa. Later in 2023, Moir will be participating in the MI-LAB Artist - In - Residence Mokuhanga Training Program in Yamanashi, Japan.