Installation view, Kristine Moran: Not as it was but as it might be, Daniel Faria Gallery, 2025.
In Not as it was but as it might be, drawings made during Moran’s walks through the public gardens and parks along the rugged shoreline of Georgian Bay become the foundation for a series of abstract paintings in which the landscape appears only in glimmers and hints. In her practice, Moran often engages with landscapes already perceived as ideal—botanical gardens, parks, and conservatories—but even in their tranquility, she feels compelled to deconstruct and re-imagine them. This impulse stems not from discontent, but from the desire to explore what lies beyond the surface, and to find meaning in the spaces between longing and fulfillment. Moran refers to the phrase “divine dissatisfaction” to describe the drive behind her work. First articulated by Martha Graham, it describes an enduring, sacred restlessness that compels her to search for something more.
Eight years ago, Kristine Moran left Brooklyn, NY, and began a year-long road-trip across the United States with her two children and husband. It was during this time that her approach to both the landscape and abstraction evolved. Moran was constantly sketching, creating quick, almost automatic line drawings of the national parks and varied topographies as they passed through them. These drawings became frameworks for exploring colour and texture, letting go of the original geography and instead approaching the composition as an abstract painting.
Years later, Moran and her family embarked on another year-long journey, this time to Bordeaux, France. There, she revisited the same methodology, drawing while walking through the various public gardens near her home. “Drawing this way urges me to stay present knowing that the moment will pass me by shortly,” she writes. Moving through a space—slow enough to capture lines and shapes, yet fast enough to perceive multiple elements simultaneously—results in a skewed perspective, where forms and impressions are jotted down from various vantage points at once. It was also in Bordeaux that Moran became interested in the idea of the Jardin Public: spaces with utopic aspirations for contemplation and communion with nature.
Now based in Owen Sound, Canada, Moran continues drawing while walking, seeking out the gardens, parks and shorelines in Grey Bruce County, such as Kepple Croft Gardens, Harrison Park, and Ainslie Woods. Each of these parks holds its own histories of desire and idealisation, striving for a more harmonious relationship between the natural world and those who inhabit it. Kepple Croft Gardens, for example, was conceived as a living testament to the diverse beauty of cold-climate gardening. Its founders envisioned it as an evolving garden that reflects both the local environment and global horticultural influences, creating a space that fuses personal passion with communal gathering.
Back in the studio, these drawings are translated to oil on canvas, stretching further away from the moment and place in which they were first created, so that recognizable forms collide and collapse into new arrangements. Pathways appear flattened due to perspectival interruptions, cliff-like drops seem to give way to blooming foliage, and shadows appear wrenched from their subjects. Depth emerges, but the paint holds the viewer at the surface. Archways appear as a recurring motif. “When walking through gardens, I often feel that something mysterious and unknowable awaits on the other side of an archway—a fleeting promise of magic that disappears the moment I walk beneath it,” writes Moran. “For me, the archway symbolizes transition and passage, acting as a portal to something greater yet ephemeral. This reflects my life and my work—a continuous pursuit of something just beyond reach, something not yet known.” A divine dissatisfaction propels her onwards.
Kristine Moran received her MFA from Hunter College in New York. She has exhibited in solo and two-person shows at Tom Thomson Gallery (Owen Sound), The Hole (New York), Nicelle Beauchene (New York), and Daniel Faria Gallery (Toronto). Her work has been included in exhibitions at: Sargent’s Daughters (Los Angeles, 2024; New York, 2014); The Hole, New York (2023; 2020); Dianna Witte Gallery, Toronto (2019); Cuevas Tilleard, New York (2016); and Nathalie Karg Gallery, New York (2015). Her work will be in the upcoming exhibition Sports Sports Sports at Art Windsor Essex, opening March 2025. Moran was included in the Phaidon Anthology Vitamin P2, and her work has been acquired by several international collections, including the Saatchi Collection (London, UK), the Albright Knox, (Buffalo), and the Glenbow Museum (Calgary).
