Musée Picasso
AboutNew Jersey artist, Florence Moonan, has decades of art-making experience. A career dating from the late 1980s includes painting, mixed media and sculpture. She is noted for her tactile abstract venetian plaster paintings. Born in Trenton and raised in Lambertville, her home and studio are now located in Stockton where she and her husband raised four children. She was a full-time employee at The College of New Jersey, and part-time student while actively pursuing an art career. In 2002, Moonan received her BFA from The College of New Jersey summa cum laude and is a member of Phi Kappa Phi.
The driving force behind her work is a narrative drawn from her personal history, the natural world, travel experiences, and above all, music. She appeared to be headed in the direction of theater as a young member of the Lambertville Music Circus, but ideas of performing merged into painting after her father gave her a set of acrylics. Her creative process involves tapping into her instincts to discover and create an expressive language using color and texture. The unique qualities of venetian plaster, her current medium of choice for her multi-layered work, helps her produce surfaces that reveal fragmented patterns and rich textures. She also enjoys up-cycling ordinary materials and working in series. Her three-dimensional LP Series is not only inspired by music, it’s on it. Namely, her long playing record collection.
Moonan’s work was selected for the Hunterdon Art Museum Members Exhibition 2022-2023. Her work was included in the Ellarslie Open 39 at the Trenton City Museum. Rutherfurd Hall in Allamuchy, invited her to exhibit during their first Celebrate the Arts event May 2022. Along with 15 regional abstract artists, Moonan’s work was featured in The Conversation Continues at The Trenton City Museum Ellarslie Mansion 2020-2021. Her list of exhibitions is extensive and includes juried, invitational, solo and group exhibitions in Connecticut, Florida, Maryland, New York and Texas. Her work has been featured at the Monmouth Museum; Middlesex County Museum; Abington Art Center; Philadelphia City Hall; Perkins Center for the Arts; The College of New Jersey; Mercer County Community College; Centenary College; Trenton City Museum; New Hope Arts Center; The Center for Contemporary Art in Bedminster; Aljira Center for Contemporary Arts in Newark; Prallsville Mills; Hunterdon Art Museum; Maryland Federation of Art; Chautauqua Institution; Norristown Arts Center; George Segal Gallery, and Pennswood Art Gallery.
In addition, her work was selected for the New Jersey Emerging Artists Series, Monmouth Museum in Lincroft, NJ and Artsbridge Distinguished Artist Series at Prallsville Mills. It has received awards from GoggleWorks Center for the Arts; D & R Greenway Land Trust Gallery; Phillips Mill; Ellarslie Open; New Hope Arts Center; Makers Alley; Prallsville Mills; Hunterdon County Cultural & Heritage Commission and Golden Key Art International. Her work is in the collection of The College of New Jersey; the Mercer County Cultural Commission Permanent Collection (2); BARC Developmental Services and other entities and private collections. She is represented in Doris Brande’s book, Artists of the River Towns.
"Why do you try to understand art?Do you try to understand the song of a bird?"--Pablo Picasso