Austrian Men
The Princes are part of this body of work, relating to fairytales and girlish longings for love. Some of the Princes take as a starting point Disney-style princes, others take the romantic hero Cary Grant. But they are always corruptions of their starting points. Prince (tilted) is inspired by Slovakian puppets, but also refers to another motif I use, The Hapsburg Hat. This was a felt hat I bought for a partner, which reminded me of hunting hats worn by the Austro-Hungarian Emperor, Franz Josef.
EM 2008
…she pares down an ongoing body of work that emanates from a personal interest in the twilight decades of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. For the exhibition, the selection of paintings reveals a particular concern with Austrian figures of masculinity; the Emperor Franz Joseph, through Sigmund Freud and Adolf Loos to the monstrous patriarch Josef Fritzl. Moreton’s rendition of these figures, from painted portraits and, latterly, from photographs, describes a process of ‘coming to terms’ with them, a negotiation played out on the surface of the painting that results in variously grotesque, funny, tragic and poignant works.
Jonathan Griffin - from The Ladies of Shalott 2010