The book brings together several hundred black-and-white drawings and sketches by the artist from the 1970s to 2016, organized thematically.
Patrick Moya writes the preamble and journalist Florence Canarelli the postscript, from which here is a short extract: “Moya has always drawn. Everywhere and in all places. Sitting or standing. On the train, on the plane, or at the restaurant. With chalk to outline the main lines in a painting. With pigment brush pens for dedications in his books. With brushes for dedications on the backs of canvases. With very fine markers in his sketchbooks in museums … Sketchbooks he has filled by the dozens, by the hundreds, over the years, since his art studies at Villa Arson in Nice. Sketchbooks of all formats and from all origins, most often bought on site during his travels. Sketchbooks that speak of his ‘designs’… and outline the main lines of his artistic adventure.”
Patrick MOYA, the artist who lives in his work
An artist, performer, and digital artist, Patrick MOYA seeks to be everywhere, erecting large steel sculptures in Asia or shaping ceramics with the letters of his name in clay in Italy, transitioning from brushes to computers, from techno parties to the walls of a chapel, from contemporary art to digital art, from real life to virtual worlds… An invasive and unique approach that takes his name and image as its pretext.
Born in 1955 in Troyes, Patrick MOYA studied art at Villa Arson in Nice (1974-1977), before posing nude as a model at the fine arts school (1979-1989) with the aim of becoming the creature, not the creator. All the while pondering the place of the artist in the contemporary world.
He began by creating works solely with the letters of his name, equating the work with his signature, before marking dictionary images with his name, and finally creating his character (1997), an offbeat self-portrait soon surrounded by an almost human-like menagerie, which together form his Moya Land.
He now owns several virtual islands on Second Life, leading the Italian critic Mario Gerosa to consider him one of the pioneers of virtual worlds. He designs his 3D island as a comprehensive work of art: the creator has finally become a creature under the name of his avatar, Moya Janus, who welcomes visitors by immersing them into his universe.
