The Many Colors of Childhood

In Cecelia Moseley's installations, childhood wonder brightens the artist's struggles of dyslexia and ADHD

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The world of Cecelia Moseley’s art is steeped in the whimsy of childhood. In her recent solo exhibition Overlay: Language Uncovered at the LSU School of Art’s Glassell Gallery, jumbles of curling cursive letters in vibrant colors splayed over the white gallery walls, dangled from the ceiling, and spilled across the floor. Daylight filtered through a lens of yellow vinyl onto ridged Styrofoam in the installation piece, “Life through a Yellow Lens''. In another installation, “Cognitive Perception,” projector light cast colorful shadows behind a coiled silver form suspended in midair. 

A native of Meridian, Mississippi, Moseley recently graduated with an MFA in Sculpture from Louisiana State University, but her passion for art stretches far back into her younger years. She remembers a childhood filled with painting and, notably, the early endeavors in sculpture: she would scavenge for colorful telephone wires in her dad’s tool shed and bend them into the shapes of insects and butterflies, then tie them to the fan in her room, high-speed, to watch them bob and spin around. 

Today, Moseley’s creative process has retained this imaginative spirit. “I used to describe my studio practice as an act of play, so kind of going back as a child and experimenting and exploring as if I was doing that in my room when I was younger,” she explained. As a mixed-media artist, she is constantly experimenting with materials: acrylics, vinyl, Styrofoam, paper, metal, mesh fabric, and light have all passed through her studio into her pieces. Often, this process involves stumbling upon new possibilities by accident. The textured Styrofoam featured in pieces such as “Life through a Yellow Lens” was conceived when Moseley tested spray paint on the slabs of the shipping material lying around the studio—and, much to her surprise, the paint ate the surface of the Styrofoam away. 

The playfulness of Moseley’s art coexists, inextricably, with another aspect of childhood that she confides in her viewers: that for her, these young years also bore challenges, patterned by the experience of growing up with dyslexia and ADHD. The bright acrylic cursive shapes that pour across the gallery wall in her piece “Language of Escape” recall the abstract words she used to sketch on the margins of her notebooks to distract herself from the frustration of the classroom: the exasperation of  constantly being pulled out of class, requiring special help during tests or with reading assignments, or attending tutoring after school while other children played at home. 

These memories, much like her materials, are reshaped and reappropriated through Moseley’s art practice. “The tools I used growing up are now an aesthetic thing in my work,” she said. The yellow film produced by light and vinyl in “Life Through a Yellow Lens” repurposes the yellow overlay bookmark she used for reading to reduce distortions of text. The color yellow is unique to her, Moseley explained: every dyslexic individual is different, and must find the overlay color that works best for them.

“I used to describe my studio practice as an act of play, so kind of going back as a child and experimenting and exploring as if I was doing that in my room when I was younger." —Cecelia Moseley 

The depth of personal experience that infuses Moseley’s artwork has made the process extraordinarily meaningful but, she confessed, not without moments of doubt. Last summer, she experienced a stage of questioning: did she still want to center her creative energy around dyslexia and ADHD? Was it time to jump ship and embark upon something completely new?

Around that time, Moseley took a trip to Decatur, Indiana to install a sculptural piece titled “Panel Installation” for the the downtown Decatur Sculpture Tour. While she was working, an older man approached her. His granddaughter had dyslexia, he explained, and it had been so impactful to read and to hear her story that his daughter was coming to Decatur in the next few weeks to view her pieces with his granddaughter. 

“It was one of those things,” Moseley says, “Having someone older, water in their eyes, explain to me how much this piece means to them, and his granddaughter just got diagnosed … It just reaffirmed, like, this is what I’m supposed to be talking about, this is really important, and it continues to make me emotional and to make me connect with people.”  

That ability to forge connection and to make others feel less alone—that is the power that brings Moseley’s work to life, and inspires her to keep creating. “I am very thankful for the parents and teachers and tutors that helped me get to where I am today,” she said. “Appreciating and celebrating that is what my work is more about now, rather than the darker struggles.” The wonders and challenges of growing up converge in Moseley’s art to create a nuanced, colorful, and moving portrait of her childhood. But today, she speaks with the perspective of an adult who has grown through her experiences and is feeding the power and beauty of that support back into the world.  

In the fall, Moseley will return to LSU as an adjunct professor, teaching two 3D Design classes and one Introduction to Sculpture course. In August, she’ll install a public artwork for the 2024–2026 exhibition at the Matthews-Sanders Sculpture Garden, followed by another in October for the 2024–2025 Rosemary Beach Sculpture Exhibition in Florida. She also has an upcoming exhibition, Layered Overlays, which will be on display at the Gumtree Museum in Tupelo, Mississippi from September 5–30. You can find her art at cmoseleyfineart.com or @cc_art_design on Instagram.