'Introduction'

Oil on board, 31.5" x 23.5"

James Mooney (born 1944)

Born in February 1944 in Kidderminster, England, Mooney left school at the age of fifteen to serve his electrical apprenticeship. In 1966 he and his family emmigrated to South Africa where he started various businesses in Cape Town and travelled the world, settling in Australia for two years in the early seventies then in England before returning to South Africa in the early eighties. His wife, Jill, is also an artist and they have lived in Sedgefield since 1983.

Mooney began painting in 1972 and exhibited at various local exhibitions until his first one-man exhibition "Beyond Reason" at the "1820 Monument" in Grahamstown in 1991. His "Portrait of James Joyce" was chosen for the 1991 Cape Town Triennial and purchased by the King George VI Gallery in Port Elizabeth. Over the last eight years there have been twelve "Portraits" which contain between two and five hundred miniatures ranging from realism to abstract expressionism.

In addition to these large "Portraits", Mooney paints small works often depicting figures in the woods that surround Sedgefield. As well as his painting he writes poetry and short stories, none of which have been published, and he is interested in all the sciences, in particular astrology.

View all works by James Mooney on the P&H website