Avelina de moray biography of albert

Avelina de Moray: goth clothing designer and artist

Avelina de Moray is a full blood artist, embracing the many creative facets of gothic and vampire art by creating poetry, music and art inspired by the surreal works of Dali, Giger and Hieronymus Bosch. Her striking paintings rely on wonderfully vivid colors to trigger emotional response. Where other gothic artist like to use cold colors to create an aura of fear, death and despair, Avelina paints with hellfire, burning red and charcoal black.

What does Avelina De Moray / your company do?

I fall into the category of Art and Photography. I am an Artist from Sydney, Australia who fuses Hi-resolution photography with fine art digital drawing. My art is (most recently) vampiric, dark and intensely colorful. I love using bright greens, deeply burnt color schemes and always try to make the artwork look as exciting as possible for the onlooker. I also dabble with live band photography, being a musician myself, capturing the effervescence of a live performance has always intrigued me, and I have had the pleasure of personally shooting many of my favorite bands throughout the course of the past 2 years.

How did the idea for all of this come about?

It all started with a keen interested in photography. I bought my first DSLR camera (at the time this was a 400D) and found myself drawn to the photographic beauty found within cemeteries. There’s something about graveyards that I find very calming & peaceful (Is that messed up?) I soon grew tired of capturing scenery and I personally find the lack of humanity a little un-emotive. I contacted a model and headed straight to my favorite cemetery (Rookwood). This photo shoot would bring forth the artwork ‘Vampires Of Rookwood’, which was my first Vampire artwork.

What originally inspired you to become an artist?

I can’t remember a pinnacle moment or one particular thing that inspired me to start creating art, it just kinda happened, but for many years the art I’d work on was shit, and I didn’t really take it that seriously. I was more into playing guitar and writing songs. After years of constantly watching vampire & gothic movies, I realized that there seemed to be a void in both the plot and the imagery. I got stick of re-writing the movies in my head and recasting the characters.

Particularly the female characters, I had a vision in my head of what the female vampires should look like, and was sick of being disappointed. There are very few movies where the main vampire has been female, besides the recent Underwold trilogy, and a few movies from the 60’s and 70’s. I think my fans find it refreshing to see female vampires as the centerpiece. And personally, would rather hang an artwork of a sexy girl on my wall, than some guy! (I think most would agree with me right??)

I’d like to do some artworks with both male and female vampires, but so far, I haven’t found any men with the right look, After all, Gary Oldman is a tough act to follow you know! And If I can’t do it better, I’d rather leave that alone for now.

What is your current artistic muse?

I’m still in love with Francis Ford Coppola’s movie Dracula. The cinematography within that movie is incredible and has inspired many of my artworks. Just last week, I staged a photo shoot based on the character Lucy Westenra which I’m very excited about! I also find Gothic architecture very inspiring; the shape of the archways, the church windows and gargoyles lend themselves beautifully to gothic art, and I’ve started to include some of these elements in my new artworks.

Have you incorporated any high profile acts into your art?

Yes. Before I started with photography, I would use random photos and manipulate them within Photoshop. As a huge HIM fan, I created a HIM artwork with Ville Valo as the centerpiece. I have also had the pleasure of shooting many of my favorite metal bands, although these are not part of my artworks, I still post them on my website for fans to see.

Your expertise is clearly dark, gothic art. Not real into painting flowers and clowns eh?

No, I prefer darker subject matter, but I do find the evil clowns very scary. You have to wonder how Van Gogh painted sunflower after sunflower without tiring of the content, but I guess I’ll get similar comments if I continue with my Vampire art.

And who knows, if I can consume enough Absinthe, perhaps I’ll start painting vampiric flowers! I enjoy mixing beauty with horror and femininity with aggression. They’re both strong traits that I think make the art more powerful or even disturbing. In ‘Vampires Of Rookwood’, my favorite part of the artwork is the scaring on the vampires face, to me, this gave the entire artwork a different vibe.

In your opinion, are Vampires and other gothic creations good, or evil? Why do they have to choose a side?

I think every creature is capable of both good and evil and that all iconic vampire characters have had elements of the two. If you look at Gary Oldman’s performance in Bram Stokers Dracula, his character (Dracula) would swing back and forth from incredibly sensuality and romantic, to a little eccentric and violent. Vampires need to kill and feed on human blood to survive, but does that make them murderers?

If it’s required for their survival isn’t that just nature taking control? I mean, we slaughter animals’ everyday to feed ourselves, and the vampire kill is probably more elegant and civilized than how we kill our livestock.

What items do you offer the public?

My art is available on canvas, T-shirts and greeting cards. My upcoming range of T-shirts & singlets will be available in early December. And I’m very excited to announce that I have just signed a licensing deal in the US, so in the coming months my art will be available on posters, Zippo lighters, puzzles, pins & stickers!

Where can people view or purchase your art / merchandise from?

My website features all of my Art and photography: Avelina de Moray- Gothic Art and Clothing I have just launched my new online store where these products can be purchased: http://www.avelinademoray.com/store/ The first clothing item to be released is the girls ‘rest in peace’ singlet. This can be seen at my shop.

Who else, if anyone, is involved in the production of your art?

The first step in created an artwork is to come up with a concept. Once I’m abele to visualize an artwork in my head, I can determine which medium I need to use, be it photography, drawing or a mixture of both. My artwork ‘Dracula’ for example, was my first artwork completely drawn from scratch. Many of my other artworks need a dedicated photo shoot of which I am the photographer.

If I myself need to model in an artwork, (artwork examples ‘Vampire Dawn’ & ‘Love, Death and what lies beneath’) I will direct the photography/lighting and my Fiancé’ Von kindly pulls the trigger. I have never released any photos straight from the camera, there is always a long Photoshop process that follows, which can take 10 to 20 hours for me to find something I’m happy with.

Another element of the vampire art that is timely is drawing the fangs. Many people think there is a photo shot brush for that shit, ( I wish!), sadly this is not the case. Each fang is hand drawn and sometimes can take me hours to get them right!

You stated ” I have had the pleasure of personally shooting many of my favorite bands “. Who were some of these bands (aside from HIM which is an obvious one)?

I adore HIM, so yeh that one’s pretty obviously! My other favorites were Nightwish, Lacuna Coil and Cradle Of Filth. Spending the day with Nightwish was especially fun as I ended up shopping with Anette in Newtown!

If a band were looking to utilize your expertise for cover art or photography etc, would this be something you would be willing to do?

And if so, how can they get in contact with you? Of course, I’m always interested in working with new people, especially bands. Anyone can contact me by visiting my website or sending me an email.