Jim Moir has been making paintings, drawings and prints since the early 1980’s. This practice has continued alongside acting and comedy for which he is better known, although to him they are all forms of artistic expression. His approach is refreshingly impulsive and his work often incorporates elements that are unsettling or bizarre. The source might be from his imagination or an experience from life.

The anarchic foundation for much of his comedy has created comparisons with radical art movements such as Dada, a reflexive response to the First World War. Rather than produce political art or protest, the Dadaist sought to disrupt or reject the established order with anarchic strategies that were often nonsensical, absurd, irrational or satirical, as if to expose the folly of the war and a corrupted world order. Charlie Chaplin captured this spirit brilliantly in his film Modern Times of 1928 exposing the crushing effects of industrialised production on the human spirit.

Moir is a compulsive artist, recording his thoughts and observations with abandon. The imagined and experienced worlds are chronicled in a prolific outpouring of ideas and thoughts beyond everyday life.

Calvin Winner, February 2018