Swimming at the edge of utopia, Tom Thomson Gallery, Owen Sound, October 16, 2021 - February 5, 2022

Moran considers the act of swimming to be the unseen performance that informs her artistic practice and in swimming at the edge of utopia, she beautifully articulates the sensations, rhythms, and mental states that surface while moving across a large body of water. Although the paintings appear highly abstracted, there is a strong figurative component that builds an illusory narrative in which a group of female swimmers are vying to reach a utopian destination, represented through the depiction of idealized landscapes. The swimmers bob in and out of the water in rhythmic synchronicity—their swim caps and goggles identifying them among the repetition of waves that engulf them. 

Cumulatively, Moran’s works evoke the nature of human persistence and offer introspections on our lives in disputed solitudes as we move through uncertain waters.