Heavy Symbolism with John Moran

After a whirlwind year after winning Blown Away Series 3, Leanne O’Connor catches up with John Moran to learn more about his debut year and his broader practice…

John explains his work is primarily as a storyteller; in John’s own words, these stories are ‘constructed from a series of anecdotes, references, and experiences. While I do draw ties to American pop culture, politics, and social issues, I do not do this arbitrarily. I attempt to illustrate the barrage of consumerism, religion, and politics colliding with depictions of social injustice, secular beliefs, and popular culture. We are a product of all these things. It is not necessarily an attempt at subversion but more an attempt to reconcile and celebrate the absurdity and hypocrisy of our perceived realities.

Blown Away Debut

After a whirlwind first year after John won the 3rd series of the Netflix original series Blown-away, which our director Bethany Wood explains is the glassblowing equivalent of Bake-off, he reports he has many lines out for fishing. He is still waiting to see when everything’s going to come in.
John has been able to let go of work which depended on the running of his studio, Ghent Glass in Ghent, Belgium – and be free to embark on work which fulfills his creative needs. Which he credits to his Blown Away win; John quickly got back to his prolific making days, and now he is in creative bliss – making the work that makes him shine.

Pop Political Art meets High Renaissance

John completed his residency at Corning Museum of Glass in May of this year, with the same team he worked with during his finale installation for Blown Away Season 3, titled ‘Behind the Golden Door’. During this residency, John has been contemplating a lot about transition, which correlates to previous works in glass; John reflected, ‘I think a lot of my work has always been about a kind of transition, all like this shift between like a real setting and kind of imagination.’

The primary affair was an extended arm, which exploded into branches adorned with flowers, an ode to the Story of Apollo and Daphne. 

Numerous mythologies often inspire John, whether that be Greek or catholic, as to john Catholicism, and the imagery it exudes is no different; its two significant ways of thinking which command colour, composition, and iconography – to dictate the narrative of belief to those who are willing to serve. However, John turns them right back at themselves by co-opting these once holy signifiers and channels them into the creation of form, which acts as an ethical mirror, interrogating the ‘then’ and the ‘now’.

When I go to a Catholic Church, I’m there for the Artwork; it’s phenomenal. That’s the thing that touches me; that’s my Religion; Art is my Religion.

John Moran

 In this Corning piece, John skews the original story and instead creates this arm of Daphne as a reference to ‘something alive out of something that’s already kind of dead’. In opposition to the original story, Daphne escapes the unwanted advances of Apollo and, in sacrifice to this escape, her father Peneus turns her into a tree. This piece speaks of two ways of making meeting and being born through hot sculpted glass; as John reflects, ‘I’m not sure 100% what they’re about yet, but I know I need to make them. Something I did get from Blown Away is that you didn’t have much time to think. So, you have an idea, make it, and then later you’re like, okay, this is what it’s about. I think I’m a bit more confident with that now.’

Growing up Catholic largely influenced the amount and type of imagery John took in, influencing how large constructs of mythology and reason produce highly theatrical depictions of myths and reason. To John, ‘It’s a story that I enjoy, and I don’t necessarily believe, but I think that there’s always a cycle, and in a thousand years, people are going to look back at Catholicism and talk about it in the same way we talk about Greek mythology.’

John commands a strong use of colour and its application, comparable to the old masters who inspire the iconographic references in his work. It’s no surprise to learn that John came from a painting background, and when he could not invest in glass colour, he would mix colours in paints that he ultimately wanted to use in glass. John then found that its no different in glass as it is in painting, as he layers gathers of coloured glass ranging from pinks to purples and ochres, which act as undertones, mid-tones and high tones; John then gathers a transparent layer of glass to lock all the colours together.

The similarities between John Moran’s Pop-Political art and High renaissance painters do not stop there, as there is an inherent Violence in figurative depictions of both movements, whether that be blatant, such as Bellini’s The Murder of St Peter the Martyr 1509 or a form of social violence, seen in Moran’s Sale of a Deathman, 2015.

These two areas of physical and social violence converge in ‘The Hollowed Family’, which Moran principally created to interrogate the depth of copyright of Mickey Mouse, how this took power away from the original artists, and the sinister reality of a corporation owning an artists work far after their death, and, at their economic disadvantage. John comments that this ‘connects to a whole history of people dumping their life into art, with little credit to show for it’.

In the same way, John strips back the skin of his skeletal ‘Mickey’ characters; he also strips back the layers of propaganda and media fog clouding critical social issues today. In John’s own words … ‘I focus on issues deep down in the seedy underbelly of the world, and then try to bring them to light through sculptural works which shine a light on these modern-day injustices.’

Dream Project

John’s Dream project is to buy an old church and convert it into a fully working hot shop with an everchanging space for large-scale installations. John specifically commented that he didn’t want a diddy little church; he wanted to go the whole hog and aim for a dark, brooding gothic cathedral!

We know of one up the road should John ever want to pay a visit on his next trip to the West Midlands …

You can find out more about John Moran and his practice via our artist’s shop, where you can view the full range of available works:

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Written by

Leanne O’Connor

Blowfish Glass UK ©