Artist Spotlight: Courtney Moore

Courtney’s artwork is a celebration of nature. She says that she “aims to create paintings that show intimate moments of the beautiful natural world we live in and all the incredible creatures that inhabit it. My artwork is an expression of gratitude.” Her vibrant and colorful work stuns with its level of detail as it captures split seconds of intense action … a crashing wave, a fox in mid-leap or a hummingbird dive brought to life in oils.

The Beginning

Courtney’s deep love for both nature and art was fostered as she, at the age of six, positioned herself behind the lens of a point and shoot camera to explore the deciduous forests and stone-lined farmland of rural Upstate New York. Focusing primarily on photography, her work was published at an early age. She placed in more than 60 photo contests, from local to international and had her photos featured in multiple magazines including Birds and Blooms and Nature’s Best Photography Magazine. 

At age eight, she became part of a local naturalist club/birding club in New York and would often end up leading the bird walks, helping others identify and learn more about birds. She has been an avid birder for most of her life. Her passion for animals, especially birds, and her close observations in the field are what drives the realistic and detailed portrayal of creatures and their unique behaviors.

Big Moves

In 2021 Courtney was in her early 20s and moved to Downeast Maine where she began to explore the mossy boreal forest of the coast. As it happened for many people, the pandemic lockdowns created a necessity to shift work paradigms. Traveling to different locations for photography came to a halt. Even though she had always enjoyed drawing and painting, photography had always been the priority. Now her photos became her inspiration as she started to experiment, first with acrylics, then later with watercolors, inks and oil.

At first, she focused on creating super-realistic images. She wanted the viewers to be unsure whether the artwork they were viewing was a painting or a photograph. For her that meant “packing as many small details into the painting as possible. Every minute detail that my eye saw in the photo references needed to go into the painting. I did not want to stray from this mindset because I was afraid that it would set me back or even erase the progress I made.”

Instead, she learned it was the exact opposite. Expanding her experimentation with techniques, medium, color, or even subject matter turned out to be fun and exciting. Letting go a bit taught her much about both her artwork and herself. She realized that sometimes “with careful consideration of color and shape, just a few brushstrokes could create a more realistic looking bird than painting hundreds of individual feathers.”

Immersion to Inspiration

When brainstorming ideas for her next painting, she chooses memories that are near and dear to her heart. She describes how each one of her paintings “transports me to that exact time and place I took a certain photo and the peace and joy I felt in those precious moments. Inspiration can spark from seemingly the most inconsequential of things, from the way the light glows through a hummingbird's wings or perhaps an especially cool looking root system on a fallen tree.”

With the natural world as her subject matter, Courtney uses her outdoor time mainly for observation and gathering reference photos. This allows her to become completely immersed in the moment without having to think about what she wants to paint. Using her photos along with details from her imagination and moments not captured by the camera, she begins to paint.

What’s Next?

This year Courtney started creating themed collections. The first two illustrate the sanctuary that she finds surrounded by nature. One celebrates and commemorates her cherished memories from her previous home in Upstate New York and the other shares her joy and wonder of her new home on the coast of Maine. The Maine collection was featured in her One-Person-Show at Eastport Gallery in September of 2025.

When asked what her favorite medium is currently, she confesses to loving oil paint. She says she enjoys “the forgiving nature of oil and the easy blending and smoothness of the paint.” However, she often bounces around from one medium to another, giving her the freedom to experiment with different techniques or sizes of paintings. She finds that switching it up helps reboot her creativity when she’s been painting in a certain medium and style for a long period of time.

The one constant in her art is the realism of the main subject matter. She may experiment with abstract backgrounds with watercolor and ink but the bird in the foreground is realistic and is as accurate to the actual species as she can make it.

More Moore

People can see more of her work at eastportgallery.com/courtney-moore and at her website, courtneymoorefineart.com or follow her on Instagram or Facebook @courtneymoorefineart. 

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