Barbara Moody
Born 1946, Elizabeth, NJ, lives and works in Beverly, MA
Should We?, 2004, charcoal on paper, 30” x 44”, Lent by the Artist, Courtesy Kingston Gallery, Boston, MA
The artwork of Barbara Moody breaks down traditional distinctions between animals and humans. In her most recent work, Moody creates images in which the position and expression of the animals, coupled with their titles, suggest a human emotion or experience. In using animals as metaphors for human behavior, Moody underlines both the humanity of animals and the wild aspect of people. “In my drawings,” she explains, “these animals have been liberated from their conventional roles as ‘tamed’ beasts. . . . By investing animals with . . . reason and emotion, they . . . [are] finally on equal footing with their human counterparts.”
Caught in strange and somewhat surreal moments, the animals, according to Moody, “illuminate human behavior from a fresh and strange perspective.” This new viewpoint is manifest in works like Should We? in which two rabbits appear to be conferring over the slumped (or slumbering) body of a bear. Riddled with ambiguous narratives, Moody’s drawings are set in dark, monochromatic landscapes that only increase their air of mystery. By telling such enigmatic tales she questions the usefulness of the line usually drawn between the tame and the wild.
