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Utah transplant, Anna Leigh Moore, has been painting native landscapes of the West since she first visited in 2013. Three years ago, Moore started pursuing art professionally and since then, she’s been sharing her art online, in local galleries, and festivals. The Arts Council sat down with Moore to learn more about her art, creative process, and inspirations. Answers are edited for clarity and conciseness.

Q: What’s your favorite color?

My favorite colors are turquoise and gold and a really bright coral. They’re all colors that remind me of The Utah desert and I’m really drawn to them. I don’t know what it is, but those three in combination are just perfect. Yeah. I just can’t choose one.

Q: What got you into painting?

I’ve been painting for as long as I can remember. It’s something that my grandmother taught me. She was a watercolor artist, so that was always a part of my upbringing. And it just has always been a thru-line throughout my life. I’ve been pursuing art in a more professional realm for the past three years and I’m really loving it.

Q: From beginning to end, what does your creative process look like?

My creative process starts with playing outside. I love to ski and run and mountain bike. All of these activities that were really the catalyst for me moving West have become what feeds my art. They take me to amazing places that inspire… a painting. Maybe the light is perfect at the top of a climbing pitch. And how can I share that experience with someone? They don’t need to do any of those activities. They can simply just have eyes. My goal is to try to translate those really blissful moments, where you’re just in nature and you feel both small and infinite at the same time. My overall goal is to translate those moments in color and line and in different mediums of paint.

Q: What inspires or influences your art?

I think a lot of my art is based on location. Especially living in Utah, because the landscape is so diverse and beautiful. I’m still, after seven years of living here, just shocked with the beauty. As far as influences and other inspirations for my art, I draw a lot on past artists like Maynard Dixon, uh, Georgia. O’Keeffe who I feel has that similar story of coming west and then being amazed. There’s still that kind of idealism about the west that is…a little complicated, but I think it’s still really true.

Q: What role does art play in your life?

The role art plays in my life is it kind of completes the circle of experience for me. Um, so whenever I see a landscape that to me is just too good to be true, or you’re, you’re in a memory and you just remember the colors so much deeper and richer and your own experience for me,

painting and trying to make permanent those moments. It’s selfish, it seems selfish, but it’s, for me, it kind of completes the cycle of an experience. Where I can have a physical representation of something that is really fleeting and sometimes people like it and that’s cool, but, uh, I think it’s more of a practice. Just the way yoga or other modes of exercise are a practice. I just think of art in that way, so I’m just excited to continue practicing. And then in turn, continue to go on adventures where you can find these moments of inspiration.

Q: What role do you think art plays in the community?

I think art is a really important glue in community. We all have our own identities and our own lives and jobs and our little bubbles, but something like a mural on a building is something we can all share. You can look at it and notice the color and maybe think it’s beautiful. Maybe you don’t think it’s beautiful. But, it is a way to find commonality and also engage in bigger conversations because without art, how do we communicate those intangibles? I think of it as another way to find likeness and that the creative process is daunting for everyone. Everyone has to figure out who they are and how to represent themselves or a piece of work. So I think both the creative process and the finished product can bring us closer together.

Q: What are you trying to convey to your audience with your art? How do you want to make your audience feel?

I think I want to make my audience feel lighter. I think the human experience and the human condition can feel really heavy sometimes, but whenever you are…in nature, you feel something apart from yourself. You’re both connected and totally disconnected at the same time. And I hope to just share that bliss of being in a world where it doesn’t matter what you do, it doesn’t matter how much money you make. You can just exist. And there’s beauty in that.

Q: If you had to tell a really close, loved one something about art, what chunk of wisdom would you leave them with?

Art is both the most important and at times useless thing in life. It has no actual purpose, but
without it, life has no purpose. And I love it.