Born in 1952, Stan Moeller was raised in rural, northern Indiana within sight of the Michigan border, in the small town of Scott, population 50. Stan excelled in art, drawing and modeling clay from an early age, and he went on to major in art at Western Michigan University. Studying art at the university level in the 1970s – a time when abstract expressionism was the fashion, it was difficult to find traditional art instruction, but Stan took as many life-drawing classes as he could. One instructor, a portrait painter from NYC, told him, “if you really want to be an artist, get out of here (college) and go paint.” To this day, Stan believes it is the very act of painting that is the best instructor, to paraphrase one if his heroes, the Spanish painter, Joaquin Sorolla y Basstida.
In the mid-1990’s, Stan traveled out to paint on Monhegan Island, where he met resident artist (and musician), Don Stone (1929-2015), who became his most important mentor and a dear friend. Years later, when Stone was no longer driving, Stan volunteered to drive him to gallery openings where they were showing together and to Master Classes Stone was teaching. It was a great experience for Stan as Stone told him lots of stories about the painters in his life and things they taught him, including Paul Strisik, Emile Gruppe and Aldro Hibbard among others. That lineage was important to Stan: Don had driven Aldro Hibbard to teach at the MFA school, in Boston, when Hibbard no longer drove. That kind of education you cannot buy.
Stan has been teaching plein air painting workshops on Monhegan Island for close to 20 years as well as workshops in Tuscany and the South of France. He has taught oil and acrylic painting courses at the New Hampshire Institute of Art in Manchester and a master class in "En Plein Air Figure in the Landscape.” His paintings have been featured in The Centennial Exhibition at The Salmagundi Club, in 2018, and in American Art Collector, Southwest Art, and International Artist Magazine. Notable awards include the Marine Environment Award for Best Depiction of Wildlife in its Natural Habitat at the 25th Annual International Marine Masters Art Exhibition at the Maritime Gallery at Mystic Seaport as well as a month-long residency by Les Amis De La Grande Vigne, in Dinan France (Brittany), where some of his paintings are now housed in the Museum’s permanent collection.
Stan and his wife, Tammy, live in York, Maine, by the upper reaches of the York River, surrounded by conservation land and farms. They travel frequently to France, Italy, and Cuba for inspiration to sketch and paint.
Artist Statement:
“I am just as intrigued by the way the light wraps around a subject as the subject itself. It seems like I’m always painting in my head. Whenever I’m looking, I’m painting; always looking at the value relationships and asking myself ‘how would I paint that?'”