Rod Moss (born April 1948) is an Australian painter and writer.

Life

Moss was born in

Ferntree Gully Ferntree Gully is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, at the foothills of the Dandenong Ranges, 30 km south-east of Melbourne's Melbourne City Centre, Central Business District, located within the City of Kn ...

, April 1948 and completed both primary and secondary schooling in Boronia before gaining Secondary Art Teaching credentials and serving the Victorian Education Department until 1979. He was invited by the charismatic Royden Irvine to teach in one of the most daring experimental schools that emerged in Melbourne during the early 1970s: Brinsley Road, East Camberwell. The school endured several relocations and ideological shifts as it journeyed on to Argo Street Prahran and lastly, Fitzroy Street, St Kilda. At the end of the decade, Moss left for a year to go to West Virginia where a school had been established by John G Bennett following guidelines inspired by the teachings of George Gurdjieff. Soon after returning to Australia, Moss relocated to Central Australia where he's lived permanently since 1984. He lectured in painting and drawing at the

Alice Springs Alice Springs ( aer, Mparntwe) is the third-largest town in the Northern Territory of Australia. Known as Stuart until 31 August 1933, the name Alice Springs was given by surveyor William Whitfield Mills after Alice, Lady Todd (''née'' Al ...

TAFE Technical and further education or simply TAFE (), is the common name in English-speaking countries in Oceania for vocational education, as a subset of tertiary education. TAFE institutions provide a wide range of predominantly vocational cours ...

campus, (now Charles Darwin University) until retiring in 2008. He lives in Alice Springs and visits his three children who are dotted around Australia's eastern seaboard. Writing and painting continue.

Painting and writing

Having concluded forty years of teaching, Moss continues to write and paint, activities he's maintained commitment to throughout the decades. His first one-man exhibition was at the Hawthorn City Galleries in 1979, and he's continued to exhibit in Australia and the United States regularly, with the support of Fireworks Gallery in Brisbane and Anna Pappas Gallery in Melbourne. In 2004 he was invited to the Contemporary Australian Art survey at the Ian Potter Gallery, Melbourne. He has collected extensive imagery that focuses on the work he's undertaken with

Arrernte Arrernte (also spelt Aranda, etc.) is a descriptor related to a group of Aboriginal Australian peoples from Central Australia. It may refer to: * Arrernte (area), land controlled by the Arrernte Council (?) * Arrernte people, Aboriginal Australi ...

families since moving to

, in

Central Australia Central Australia, also sometimes referred to as the Red Centre, is an inexactly defined region associated with the geographic centre of Australia. In its narrowest sense it describes a region that is limited to the town of Alice Springs and i ...

. Here you will also find an extensive list of awards, publications and exhibitions he's participated in. Numbering among the books are Traudi Allen's, Homesickness, Charles Green's Peripheral Visions, Daena Murray's Hotsprings and Terry Smith's Contemporary Art; World Visions. He has written two published memoirs, both of which have won the Chief Minister's NT Book Of The Year Award (Territory Read). The first, ''The Hard Light of Day'', also won the 2011 Prime Minister's Award for non-fiction. Excerpts from these books have appeared in ''UTS'', '' Arena'', '' Overland'', '' Meanjin'' and ''The Alice Springs News''. Moss has been the recipient of painting residencies at

Columbus State University Columbus State University is a public university in Columbus, Georgia. Founded as Columbus College in 1958, the university was established and is administered by the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia. History The university w ...

, Georgia, and

Broken Hill Broken Hill is an inland mining city in the far west of outback New South Wales, Australia. It is near the border with South Australia on the crossing of the Barrier Highway (A32) and the Silver City Highway (B79), in the Barrier Range. It is ...

. He was also an invited speaker at Melbourne Writers Festival, Byron Bay, Darwin, Brisbane and Auckland.

Work in public collections

* Kluge Ruhe, Virginia, USA *

, Georgia *The Howard Black Collection, Sydney University Union *Northern Territory Museum of Arts & Sciences, Darwin *Alice Art Foundation, The Araluen Centre, Alice Springs * Artbank, Sydney *BHP Billinton, Melbourne *City Lending Library, Melbourne *Melbourne State Library * Charles Darwin University *Q.L.D Art Gallery *Maree Plains Regional Art Gallery *Prospect Council Chambers, Adelaide *Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery * University of Wollongong * University of Queensland

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Moss, Rod Australian painters Living people 1948 births Painters from Melbourne Australian schoolteachers People from Ferntree Gully, Victoria 20th-century Australian male artists 21st-century Australian male artists Academic staff of Charles Darwin University People from Alice Springs