Merv Moriarty
About
Merv Moriarty has spent a lifetime committed to art and its teaching. Born in 1937 in northern NSW Moriarty’s work is represented in prominent Australian and international collections including the Queensland and New South Wales Art Galleries.
Moriarty has been a major prize winner and finalist and his career has spanned traditional realism through to abstract art and powerful figurative works. This figurative style, which focuses on the human body, has led to an ever-growing imposing and even confrontational body of work which continues to inspire comment and recognition.
While a great Australian artist in his own right, Moriarty’s true life calling has been the teaching of art. He founded the Flying Art School, first known as EastAus Art School – after gaining an unrestricted pilots licence in the early 1970s.
After a number of years running the Flying Art School, Moriarty moved on to head private art schools in Brisbane and Melbourne and is today considered by many as one of the best art educators in Australia.
Last year COLOUR: The Definitive Guide was launched at the National Library of Australia, by Andrew Sayers AO, now director National Museum of Australia.
His colour principles, researched with thousands of students and outlined in the book, have far-reaching application – for industry and for art and design – and consequences. Merv Moriarty says we need to balance logical and holistic thinking, in the arts, as in all human endeavours.
