The 30 works of Mark Tobin Moore will be on display at Ohio University Southern’s art gallery through Dec. 3.
Moore is a Charleston, West Virginia-based artist who began drawing as a child and pursued an art degree while serving in the U.S. Navy.
A self-described “service brat,” he grew up on U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force bases around the states and overseas.
“Making my art, and growing it, really, is what gives my life meaning,” Moore said. “I am always happy to show my work. I am not particular about where, as long as it gets out in the world. Talking about it is more of a challenge because of the word my in its description. I never really think it is mine. The process of painting is a conversation with another presence, one that I respect and honor each time by giving nothing less than my best effort, insights, and empathy.”
He began drawing as a child, making pencil drawings of Civil War battlefields and began making his own comic books based on DC Comic’s “Sgt. Rock and Easy Company” and Marvel’s “Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos.” He started painting realistic Civil War-inspired pieces.
He joined the U.S. Navy in 1972 and served as a personelman on the destroyer tender, USS Sierra, and became a stationkeeper at the Naval Reserve Center, South Charleston, West Virginia. In his free time, he attended the University of Charleston.
After leaving the Navy in 1983, he attended graduate school at Marshall University and graduation with an MA in art and worked for the U.S. Army in Europe as a civilian supervisory art specialist at the Giessen Depot Arts and Crafts Center, and later as the director of Exhibitions and curator of Art at the West Virginia State Museum, Charleston, West Virginia. He also worked as an adjunct professor and got a MFA in art at West Virginia University. He worked as an instructor and assistant art professor for 20 years at several West Virginia colleges and universities.
His art has been exhibited nationwide and overseas and his works are in numerous private collections in the United States and Germany
Moore is the author of “Hank Keeling: A Life in Art — A Retrospective”, Marshall University Graduate Humanities Program, 2011, and he is a signature member of the National Collage Society in Cleveland.
His works are currently on exhibit at the Military Women’s Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery and the Honfleur Gallery/Anacostia Art Center in Washington, D.C.
He is part of a group of veteran artists called UnitingUS that is headquartered in Northern Virginia.
The gallery hours are 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m., Monday–Friday.
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