Artist Statement
My work explores the spaces where people, stories, landscape, and imagination meet.
I am drawn to the threshold places: the edge of the forest, the meeting of river and sea, the boundary between the everyday and the mythical. These liminal spaces often become the starting point for my creative practice, inspiring sculptures, puppets, installations, community projects, and participatory experiences.
Nature sits at the heart of my work. I am fascinated by the intelligence and interconnectedness of living systems, and by the ways in which landscape can shape memory, identity, and belonging. Through making, I seek to create opportunities for people to reconnect with the natural world and with their own sense of wonder.
Much of my practice is collaborative. Whether creating large-scale public sculptures, coordinating artists on sculpture trails, facilitating workshops, or building parade puppets, I am interested in the power of creativity to bring people together. I see art as a meeting place — somewhere people can gather, share stories, explore ideas, and experience something larger than themselves.
Storytelling is an important thread throughout my work. Folklore, local history, ecology, ancestral memory, and mythology all influence the pieces I create. I am particularly interested in how stories can help us make sense of change, deepen our connection to place, and imagine new possibilities for the future.
I work across a range of materials and processes, often combining sculpture, natural materials, found objects, participatory making, and creative facilitation. The scale of the work may vary from intimate objects to large public artworks and puppets, but the intention remains the same: to create experiences that invite curiosity, connection, and participation.
Ultimately, my practice is an exploration of belonging — to ourselves, to our communities, and to the wider living world. Through art, I hope to create spaces where people can pause, engage their senses, and rediscover the beauty, stories, and relationships that surround them.
The puppets below were created with a group of local Artists as Part of a workshop lead by Andrew Kim for Dundee City Council and performed at the Dundee Hooley in November 2024.
Artist Bio
Rio Moore is a Scottish artist, sculptor, facilitator, and creative producer whose work explores the meeting places between people, nature, story, and imagination.
Working across sculpture, installation, puppetry, community arts, and nature-based practice, Rio creates work that invites connection, wonder, and participation. Her artistic practice is deeply influenced by the natural world, folklore, mythology, and the liminal spaces where personal and collective stories meet.
Over the past two decades she has developed and delivered creative projects for festivals, local authorities, schools, museums, community organisations, and environmental initiatives throughout Scotland. Her work ranges from intimate creative workshops to large-scale public artworks, sculpture trails, and parade puppets.
Rio is the creator of Moby, a large-scale whale sculpture inspired by Dundee’s maritime heritage and the stories of the North Sea. The project brought together themes of ecology, history, storytelling, and community engagement, reflecting her ongoing interest in the relationship between people and place.
Alongside her own artistic practice, Rio has worked as both an Artist Coordinator and contributing artist on a number of public sculpture trails for Wild in Art. In these roles she has supported artists, communities, sponsors, and project partners while helping to shape engaging public art experiences that encourage exploration, creativity, and civic pride.
A skilled maker of large-scale puppets and participatory artworks, Rio enjoys creating pieces that bring people together through shared experiences of play, celebration, and storytelling. Her puppets and sculptural works often draw upon folklore, animals, ancestral themes, and the more-than-human world, inviting audiences of all ages into imaginative encounters.
Community engagement sits at the heart of her practice. Whether leading messy play sessions at the DCA. facilitating creative workshops for various Museums and Organisations, developing nature-based experiences, or producing public artworks for clients such as Dundee City Council, Rio is passionate about creating welcoming spaces where people can explore creativity, build confidence, and connect with one another.
Increasingly, her work explores the relationship between creativity, wellbeing, ecology, and belonging. Drawing on her experience as a facilitator and nature-based practitioner, she creates opportunities for people to reconnect with themselves, their communities, and the landscapes that hold them with a little bit of magic thrown in for good measure.
