When she was four years old, Esther Moorehead and her family moved from Canada to Northern Ireland to live with Moorehead’s great grandparents. Her great grandfather was the head gardener for an Irish estate, and tended to his own (much smaller) garden with equal diligence. Young Moorehead trotted along behind her great grandfather as he weeded and pruned, divided and fertilized. “I can still remember the distinct smell of his greenhouse. I can feel the damp, dark soil from the flower beds between my fingers,” recalls Moorehead. “That is where my creative soul was born.”
Moorehead spent the remainder of her childhood years dipping her toes into a myriad of creative pursuits. Drawing, painting, stage design, church music – everything piqued her interest. At college in South Carolina, she studied Art Education before returning to Toronto, Canada. There, she accepted a position as an art educator in a high school. In her spare time, Moorehead worked toward building a career as a full-time studio artist while life meandered onward. She got married. She gave birth to her first child. Then, she was diagnosed with cancer.
The diagnosis prompted a recalibration. Hope and gratitude loomed large for Moorehead. So, when her family relocated to Charlotte in 2018, she dove into life as a studio artist, developing relationships with local galleries and arts organizations and finding fellow artists and other creatives to connect with, uplift, and learn from. These days, Moorehead’s work is in galleries and public spaces in both the USA and Canada.
The Media of Esther Moorehead
Her paintings (acrylic and oil on canvas) are bold and rich, almost always featuring people who often populate busy urban settings. It’s no surprise, then, to learn that New York City is a source of much of Moorehead’s inspiration. “I love the buzz of a city street full of people in constant motion,” she says. “I wonder what their stories are, where they are going, what dreams they are working toward.” That curiosity is perceptible in Moorehead’s work. The groups of subjects seem less like crowds and more like collectives, quietly bound by shared humanity, but also honored in their individuality.
A newer application of Moorehead’s creativity is the creation of murals. This work comes on the heels of making set designs for small theater projects, which helped acclimate Moorehead to large-scale work. “I love scaling up my imagery to create a more immersive experience,” Moorehead has come to realize. Her murals can now be found at the Charlotte Art League, C.N. Jenkins Memorial Presbyterian Church near Camp North End, and Luminous Lane (an alley in Uptown transformed by 42 artists during the Charlotte Shout! Festival).
Finding Flow
Esther Moorehead works out of a studio space in Charlotte, creating as often as possible while still protecting time to be present with her family and invest in her community. That intentional protection of presence, combined with a true artistic calling, allows Moorehead to become fully absorbed in her creative process. “When I paint, whatever piece I’m working on becomes my world,” says Moorehead. “It’s strange and beautiful …It’s like nothing else exists in those moments.”
She hopes this is how viewers experience her artwork, as well. To find themselves not so much seeing the art but existing within it. And, perhaps just as importantly, finding solace in the company of each works’ figures. “Sometimes the present can be overwhelming,” confesses Moorehead. “But what keeps me grounded is a phrase passed to me by my dad, ‘where there’s life, there’s hope.’” A sentiment that seems as true when applied to the streets of New York City as to the soil in a small garden in Belfast.
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