Amber Moir

Amber Moir (1990) is a South-African artist. She lives and works in Cape Town.

The language of Moir’s large-scale, immersive work is forged through translating watercolour paintings into pitch-rolled prints. This process involves emulating an etching press, either outdoors or on the studio floor, and utilizing a pitch-roller as printing tool. Works are painted with watercolours onto sheets of polypropylene plastic before being impressed onto damp calico fabric, creating a confluence of painting and print.

Moir’s initial interest in printmaking was the feeling of facilitating a series of events rather than imposing something directly on to a substrate. Printing with the pitch-roller furthers 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, the method is imprecise and unpredictable with strips of folded fabric and uneven printed surfaces serving as visual cues of the physical and hybrid nature of Moir’s process.

Once dry, some of the works develop into drawings, as shaded areas and fine lines are added with colour pencils. Moir says of her method: “I’m interested in the tension between agency and facilitation and the skill of knowing when to step in and when to step out. I’ve developed a method that helps to decentralize my role in the making process, and it’s in this space that I find a sense of freedom.”