Perspectives: Veretta Moller

Visit Veretta Moller’s studio space in Alexandria’s River Oaks Square Arts Center, and don’t be afraid to touch the art. In fact, nothing would make your host happier. Why? Because, for this Ohio native, Central Louisiana transplant—who cut her teeth in the creative blast furnace of New York fashion design—texture is everything. “Coming from the fashion industry, texture is so important,” she exclaimed. “To know what your experience is, you need to have all your senses utilized.” So when a child reaches out to touch her work, Moller loves it. “Usually of course, an adult snatches the hand away and says, ‘Leave it alone!’ And I say, ‘Let him touch it so he can know what he’s seeing!’ ” We can’t really see something, Moller believes, until we can touch it. “I think not only should the viewer approach art like that, the maker should approach it that way too. That way they are properly sharing what they’ve done.” Needless to say, Moller never buys anything online.

“Coming from the fashion industry, texture is so important,” she exclaimed. “To know what your experience is, you need to have all your senses utilized.”

—Artist Veretta Moller

[Read about another Alexandria artist, Janet Ahrens, in our 2016 story here.]

In Moller’s abstract works and collages, unexpected combinations of colors and textures cascade across the canvas. Like tectonic plates, color fields collide and splinter, cut through by peaks and valleys carved into the paint, and engraved with runic inscriptions that seem to whisper deeper meaning. There is something simultaneously ancient and contemporary in the result—like happening on a clay tablet inscribed with a long-lost language expressed in color and line, that might prove decipherable if only we looked long enough. Look closely at—or better still, run your hands over—a piece and the word that comes to mind is “synthesis.” Moller’s art draws upon a lifetime’s experiences and cultural influences and offers viewers an invitation to explore the worlds within, without telling them exactly what to see. It’s her response, the artist believes, to her lifelong fascination with other cultures both ancient and modern—and with the ways in which our human tribes differ while also remaining the same. “I like to share information,” she said; “to help a person synthesize and analyze all that’s going on.”

What’s going on, it turns out, is a lot. Having walked a path that led from retail, through fashion design and manufacture, and ultimately to creating art for its own sake, it should come as no surprise that Veretta Moller’s original art pieces find expression in many forms beyond the traditional artist’s canvas. “The artwork is just the start,” she said, describing how, once a piece of art takes shape, she lets her experience in fashion guide its evolution. So, an abstract painting or collage piece might find its final expression in an item of clothing, a piece of furniture, or an article of home décor—applications that her relationships in the fashion and design worlds enable her to bring to market. But in the end, she feels, where the art ends and the design begins is immaterial. “Art has been put into categories, and it shouldn’t be,” she said. “There’s ‘I like it,’ and ‘I don’t like it.’ And that’s all that’s necessary.” 

Veretta Moller is a resident artist at River Oaks Square Arts Center in Alexandria, where she creates mixed-media collages that ultimately find their way into various fashion and interior design applications. See more at verettaart.com.

In October, Moller will be profiled on LPB’s Art Rocks, the weekly showcase of visual and performing arts hosted by Country Roads publisher James Fox-Smith. Tune in Friday, October 2, at 8:30 pm or Saturday, October 3, at 5:30 pm across the LPB network. lpb.org/artrocks.