{"id":251791,"date":"2025-07-09T21:41:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T21:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/251791\/"},"modified":"2025-07-09T21:41:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T21:41:11","slug":"jim-moir-speaks-to-ym-at-launch-of-new-lady-lever-art-exhibition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/251791\/","title":{"rendered":"Jim Moir speaks to YM at launch of new Lady Lever art exhibition"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\tA new exhibition featuring artwork by Jim Moir has launched at the Lady Lever Art Gallery in Port Sunlight.<\/p>\n

From garden birds to seabirds, Dawn to Dusk: Birds celebrates the magic and majesty of many of the UK\u2019s most-loved feathered friends, inviting us to appreciate their brilliance and importance through the beauty of paint.<\/p>\n

Around 45 of Moir\u2019s paintings have gone on display at the Wirral gallery, some of which have been created exclusively for the exhibition.<\/p>\n

Many visitors will be familiar with Moir\u2019s work following the successful Sky Arts series, Painting Birds with Jim and Nancy Moir. This is the first time that the artist\u2019s paintings have been displayed in a national gallery, with most pieces available for purchase.<\/p>\n

Born in Leeds in 1959, Moir grew up in Darlington. Both of his parents were artistic \u2013 his mother was a painter and his father was a woodturner. He was immersed in the art world as a child, regularly attending craft fairs and galleries with his parents. He achieved his first taste of success at the age of 10, winning a competition on a cornflakes box by painting a combine harvester. He went on to study at art school.<\/p>\n

Growing up in a rural area, the natural world was Moir\u2019s playground as a child. He and his friends would search for birds and their nests in hedgerows. After his father gifted him a set of very heavy binoculars from the Second World War, he became more interested in watching the birds from afar.<\/p>\n

In a special interview with YM Liverpool ahead of the launch, Moir reflected on the significance of staging his first exhibition in a national gallery, and here on Merseyside no less.<\/p>\n

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A Salon of Curlews over the marsh from Dawn to Dusk: Birds by Jim Moir at Lady Lever Art Gallery. Image courtesy of Jim Moir.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m massively proud to be here \u2013 among the likes of Rossetti, Holman Hunt, and all those Pre-Raphaelites \u2013 even Turner is in here somewhere, lurking. These are the artists I\u2019ve always been a fan of, and now I\u2019m here next to them, as a sort of support act.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moir, who is perhaps still best known to many as his comedy alter ego Vic Reeves, described the invitation to exhibit at the gallery as an unexpected honour. \u201cThe Lady Lever approached me, which was a great privilege. With such a fantastic collection here, I thought, \u2018How can you say no?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I\u2019m doing here is showing people the way I see things. You\u2019re seeing the natural world through my eyes \u2013 which is what all art really is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among the gallery\u2019s permanent works is one that had a profound influence on Moir during his formative years: William Holman Hunt\u2019s The Scapegoat. \u201cWhen I was at art school, I used to stare at it in a textbook for hours, reading about how he painted it and the madness he went through to create it.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Moir, the exhibition marks a new chapter in his career \u2013 but not necessarily a departure from his past. \u201cIt\u2019s not that I got bored of doing television \u2013 it just kind of ran its course. I\u2019ve always lived my life doing what I enjoy, and now I\u2019ve returned to what I\u2019ve always done: painting and sculpture, but full-time.\u201d<\/p>\n

And how does he feel about sharing this different side of himself on such a prominent stage? \u201cIt\u2019s great, but I don\u2019t really think of it as saying, \u2018Here you are, this is what I can do.\u2019 People can come and see the exhibition and decide for themselves whether they like it or not. Some will, some won\u2019t \u2013 and that\u2019s fine. It\u2019s the same for me when I look at art. But I\u2019m very, very pleased with what I\u2019m doing now \u2013 and I\u2019m very happy with life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moir hasn\u2019t ruled out sketching Merseyside\u2019s most iconic pair of birds during his time in town either. \u201cI always carry little pieces of paper and travel paints with me, so I\u2019ll probably head towards the Liver Building.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dawn to Dusk: Birds is at the Lady Lever Art Gallery until 2 November. Admission is free and no booking is required
\nMain image \u00a9 Pete Carr<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new exhibition featuring artwork by Jim Moir has launched at the Lady Lever Art Gallery in Port…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251792,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8815],"tags":[2606,748,393,4884,97053,10383,179,4065,70411,16,15,97054],"class_list":{"0":"post-251791","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-liverpool","8":"tag-art","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-jim-moir","13":"tag-lady-lever-art-gallery","14":"tag-liverpool","15":"tag-painting","16":"tag-port-sunlight","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-vic-reeves"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114825454192186295","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}