EVERY day Jim Moir goes for a walk – and he observes the other world that most of us take for granted and barely even notice.
The otherworldly world of birds has fascinated him since childhood. Ask him why and he shrugs: “You’d probably have to speak to a psychiatrist about that.”
“They’re just weird, birds, in a good way,” adds Jim, standing in the David Hockney Gallery at Bradford’s Cartwright Hall, surrounded by birds he has immortalised in a variety of art styles. “Lots of people are drawn to birds because they’re strange, and they have superpowers. They can do things we wish we could do, like fly, and so much more.”
Jim is a prolific artist. He started painting long before he became comedy legend Vic Reeves, and he has always worked between painting and performance.
Now his artwork has gone on display in Bradford in a striking exhibition. Neo Fauna. It’s a vibrant, intriguing showcase featuring a bewildering range of styles, from brightly coloured, funky portraits to poignant pencil drawings and atmospheric watercolours. At the heart of the exhibition are British birds, including magpies, ravens and robins, captured on canvas using experimental techniques. Jim uses a variety of mediums – paints, pencil, charcoal and other materials to add layers and texture to his works.
“I’m easily bored so I’m always seeking different mediums. I use mud sometimes, bits of the landscape,” he says. Bringing nature literally into the painting? “You could say that,” he smiles.
Jim became interested in birds as a boy when his dad gave him an old pair of binoculars. He started bird-watching. “Kids don’t do it so much now.” Because of the internet? “Yes – although apparently there’s a resurgence.”
Jim paints every day; it’s a discipline, not just when the muse takes him: “I paint from 5.30am until about 12, then Nancy and I go out and walk. We look at what’s out there. For me it’s just as important as time in the studio because you’re looking at things and you’ve got to experience things, you’ve got to feel it.”
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A colourful robin in Jim’s Jazz Birds collection
Jim’s daily walks are integral to his creative process. Just as the way to identify a bird when birdwatching is to see how it moves, the painting process for Jim comes from observing birds in their natural habitat and learning about their behaviour. He gets to know their character, their ‘personality’, and that leaps from his paintings – inviting us to see birds in new ways.
His passion for ornithology and art converges in Sky Arts series Painting Birds with Jim and Nancy Moir, in which Jim and his wife travel across the UK painting native birds. Jim hopes Neo Fauna will encourage people to head into Lister Park to check out the birdlife. “I don’t think you get much in Bradford that you don’t get in other cities in the North. You’d have to go a long way to find a gannet. But if you take the time to look, sometimes you’re surprised what you see,” he says.
The highlight of his exhibition is a series of large, colourful bird paintings of garden birds – long-tailed tit, tree creeper, firecrest, magpie – which he painted while listening to jazz. Materials such as masking tape are layered on the paint, adding new textures.
Often Jim will start a sketch then apply watercolour, then charcoal, then rub it out until he finds the picture he’s happy with. “I do the same with the big paintings – allowing the paint to dry, then repeating up to seven layers until I get the effect I’m looking for,” he says.
There are so many different art styles in this exhibition, it’s incredible that it all came from one artist. The anarchy and eccentricity synonymous with Jim and his comedy is evident in his bold, often surreal paintings of animals and humans.
A series of paintings of American couples, inspired by photographic portraits, are accompanied by back stories he created. ‘Rhett Bugler and Cindy Clout: Rhett is an ex male exotic dancer and suggestive contortionist. Now Governor of USP Hazleton. Cindy is a rattlesnake wrangler for movies.’ ‘Wilson Hodd 4th and Spin Windle. Wilson is chief harmonica with the Knoxville Philharmonic. Spin was Wet Hair Look Queen 1983’.
“It’s not a deliberate thing, to do lots of different styles. I just paint what I know and what I like,” he says.
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Jim works with a variety of different art styles and mediums
Born in Leeds in 1959, Jim moved with his family to Darlington at the age of five. As a school-leaver with a passion for drawing, he was keen to go to art school but his dad had other ideas. ‘Who ever made any money out of a career in art?’ he asked. ‘Andy Warhol’ came young Jim’s reply. He ended up doing an apprenticeship in mechanical engineering.
Despite coming from an ‘arty family’ and visiting art galleries with his mum, Jim wasn’t encouraged to pursue art as a career and says it’s still not widely pushed as a serious subject at school: “People tend to think it’s a bit of fluff, something to do when you’ve been at work all day, not a career option. When I was 15, if I’d known that one day I’d be doing this I’d have been so excited,” he says, gesturing around the gallery. “I’d be going: ‘I can’t wait to get old!’”
Mechanical engineering wasn’t for Jim and he finally got to study art, at the Sir John Cass Art School in London. In the 1980s he was a cult comedy hero, as Vic Reeves, later becoming a household name in British comedy, with TV shows including Vic Reeves Big Night Out, Shooting Stars and The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer.
But art remains his first love, and his work has been exhibited widely, including the Saatchi Gallery and Royal Academy and a major series of bird paintings at Lady Lever Art Gallery in Port Sunlight last year.
* Jim Moir: Neo Fauna runs until August 31 at Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, Lister Park, Bradford.
All his artworks are available to buy, with a portion of the proceeds supporting Bradford and District Museums and Galleries.
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