Aris Moore awarded 2024 Artist Advancement Grant

Like most kids, Aris Moore had favorite animal friends, stuffed and real. Aris’ dogs, birds, lizards, frogs and burnt stuffed monkey were an important part of her childhood – the stars of her youthful stories and drawings.

Now, that she is an accomplished artist, Aris’ animals still are important, and their role is about to get larger.

With help from the 2024 Piscataqua Region Artist Advancement Grant from the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, Aris plans to move from small drawings and paintings to larger work, incorporating her lifelong companions in new creations that explore connections, relationships, color and form.

“With my animals, I understood their communication,” she said. “I never doubted their sincerity. We believed in each other’s goodness. In my drawings, I escape back to that world to process all that has happened outside of it.”

Aris brings her growing cast of characters together in drawings to see how they connect and interact.

“I go between sort of a real sadness and then sometimes funny and kind of sassy drawings that are a little irreverent,” she said.

A sad, recurring story in her art involves a stuffed monkey that she had around age five. One night, she realized her monkey had gotten lost. The next morning, her dad found it outside. Someone had lit it on fire. There was no saving it.

“It kind of became this symbol of breaking away from the fact that your parents could solve everything and realizing there’s gonna be some really hard things, and you’re kind of on your own, kid, so there’s so many things wrapped up in that image,” she said of her continued return to featuring the ruined toy in her art.

In early drawings, she gave the burnt monkey an exaggerated, wide-mouthed smile to make it look happy, but as she got older, she recognized she had created a more tortured image.

“Which is kind of a little bit of adulthood,” she said. “You kind of realize the hard parts of your childhood as you get older.”

Aris draws in sketchbooks that range from index card size to standard 8-by-11-inch paper. She primarily uses pencil, colored pencil, paint and alcohol markers, ballpoint and drawing pens and watercolor.

She is excited to move into larger works – 2-by-4 feet or larger – while guarding against simply making her small characters large.

“Tiny, little marks on a tiny paper are different than tiny little marks on a big scale,” Aris said. “I think it’s going to be super challenging to figure out how to keep that same sort of intimacy with my characters. I have no idea what’s going to happen.”

The grant will cover major living expenses and materials, removing the constant anxiety and pressure to produce sales. It will allow Aris to slow down her maddening pace of creating work, marketing and selling so she can “breathe, reflect and plan for my next steps as an artist.”

“I’m grateful because the grant has given me the opportunity to calm down a little,” she said, to focus on personal growth, professional growth and giving back.

Aris’ plans include applying to two art residencies, establishing connections with local galleries, reconnecting with a gallery in New York, continuing to produce small works and experimenting with the materials and themes of larger pieces.

She also plans to create opportunities for local artists and art students to connect to support each other and the community; visit galleries; or critique each other’s work to encourage, inspire, and fuel their artistic growth.

She is excited that her childhood passion fueled an expanding career and mindful that her art has helped her get to know her characters and herself.

“I feel like I came back full on to an adult version of my kid self,” Aris said. “And I feel very connected to that person that was me when I was a kid.”

In addition to possible showings in local galleries and New York, Aris has been approached about potential exhibits in Miami and Taipei. See Aris’ work on Instagram: @arismoore.

The $25,000 Piscataqua Artist Advancement grant is one of the largest unrestricted grants awarded to a single artist in the country. Finalists were Maine comics and zine creator Isabella Rotman; ceramics sculptor Meghan Samson of Barrington, N.H.; and Portsmouth, N.H. painter/sculptor Lily Raymond. Each received $1000.