Alumni Spotlight- Brad Moore
B.A. 1984 — Art ; Cinema Studies minor
Unless you’re in to heavy metal, or comic books, there is a good chance you’ve never heard of Brad Moore. The Carbondale-based artist has worked in numerous mediums during his career, including painting, illustration, video production and comics, but he is best known for the dozens of paintings used as cover art for heavy metal bands.
Moore grew up in Harrisburg, Illinois, a coal mining town where art was not quite as lightweight as an afterthought, but it certainly wasn’t a career path.
“It’s probably different now, but when I was growing up, if you were an artist you were right up there with a devil worshiper or a communist. When I graduated high school and I told people I was going to college to study art, they had a hard time believing it. They said things like we’ll hold a spot for you at the grain elevator,” Moore said.
But when his friend, Bruce Hall, introduced him to bands like Jethro Tull, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and the rock-n-roll art that accompanied them, the idea of being a full-time artist took root.
Ultimately it was the encouragement of his high school art teacher, Barbara Allen, that convinced him he could make a career out of being an artist.
“I had been drawing since kindergarten. I was totally absorbed by the cartoons and films that I saw. And so, in high school, when my art teacher, Ms. Allen, saw that talent in me and encouraged it, I thought why not make it my career and be paid for it?” Moore said.
So Moore applied to SIU’s Art and Design Department, and he’s never looked back. It was there he met professors, Herbert Fink, and Ed Shay, who would have profound influence on his career.
“I owe so much to them. Herb Fink was the first person to take me seriously. He edited my portfolio in a way that perfectly positioned me to apply for commercial work. He knew what publishers and art directors were looking for. They’re not looking for flash, they’re looking for substantive work and the ability to meet a deadline. You can get fancy after you’ve proven yourself,” Moore said.
Along the way Moore also found the beat writers, pulp fiction, and the work of H.P Lovecraft and Ray Harryhausen. And while taking classes in cinema to complete his minor, he found European filmmaking, which cemented his identity as an artist.
“I consider myself a surrealist. And I’m not sure how that happened, but if I look back at everything I have done, it’s evident to me. My style was there long before I knew that term or what it meant,” Moore said.
Moore’s first paying job as an artist actually came before he graduated, when he was hired to create the cover for a Star Trek convention program. When the man who hired him for that job noticed that Moore’s resume listed him as a painter, he offered to get Moore into a show in Chicago.
“He said, there’s some big gallery show. It’s three rooms of art. Send me your work and I’ll put you on the wall right next to the big guys. I didn’t know what the big guys meant, but a friend and I went, splitting the cost as only college students can do, and when I got there, he had my work right next to Ralph McQuarrie. If you don’t know who that is, he designs Star Wars. So all of a sudden, I’m right beside the guy that designs Star Wars. It blew my mind.” Moore said.
From there, Moore began to make connections in the comic book industry, and had almost immediate success.
He found regular work as a freelance inker/colorist in the horror comics genre, for companies like for Pyramid Comics, Fathom Press, Graphomania, Arrow Comics, London Night Studios and Boneyard Press where he worked alongside such legends as Tim Vigil, Everette Hartsoe, S. Clay Wilson and Steve Bissette.
“In that art form I’ve been published over 500 times worldwide, but chose to leave it to concentrate on my painting. Luckily, my comic book work was out there, and it ultimately provided a bridge from that career to my next one,” Moore said.
Moore said in the late 80s he began to get mail from different metal bands, who had read his comics while on tour, asking him to draw or paint logos, album covers, and designs for merchandise.
“I was always a “metalhead,” so it felt like a logical next step to work with that genre. I feel really lucky that I have been able to combine the great pleasure of music I like with my work as an artist. I always request samples of the music that will be on that particular album, and then spend time listening to it for inspiration,” Moore said.
Moore said the imagery in his paintings comes to him all at once, and then he spends days at his drawing table working to put them on canvas. He once spent 300 hours on a painting.
His work is intricate and layered and works with themes of ancestry and deep gulfs of time, often with one character playing several roles on the canvas.
He considers himself an old-world artist, and prefers working in acrylic using old school methods. His home is also his studio, and he lives and works, somewhat monk-like, at a table, facing a small window. It’s a spiritual practice, he says, a way of life.
“I keep a journal by my bed because I wake up multiple times during the night to keep track of my ideas and visions. There will never be enough time for me to record everything that occurs to me,” Moore said.
Moore’s work has also been exhibited around the globe. He has taken part in over 70 international art exhibits, and in 2006 was hand-picked by the artist H.R Geiger (of the movie “Alien” fame) to exhibit his painting “Dwellers in the Horoscope,” at an art exhibit in Geiger’s castle in Switzerland.
He supervised the creation of an outdoor art installation “Mobile Murals,” consisting of 36, “10 x 4 “panels,” each containing two mathematical patterns, based on the pioneering work of Professor Roger Penrose, for the City of Carbondale, Illinois.
He also put his cinema studies minor to work in independent films: Moore devised special effects for a film called, Platypossum, and acted in the film “Dig Two Graves,” a low-budget thriller filmed in southern Illinois.
Moore continues to create artwork for metal bands, and record companies around the world, and still works in the occasional horror magazine. He just finished some work for the band GATECREEPER which will be featured on cover of Decibel Magazine next month. His fans can find him at comic cons across the country, or online on his Facebook page.
Alumni Spotlight celebrates our Saluki Alumni, their successes, and their memories of their time at SIU Carbondale. If you’d like to be the focus of this weekly feature, or nominate someone to be featured, please email us at alumni@siu.edu.
