Matthew Moore intended to leave the family business entirely to pursue art, but on a visit to his home in 2001 he witnessed the destruction of 400 acres of neighboring citrus trees that had been there for more than 70 years. “It was my impetus for returning to the land,” Moore says. “The landscape was changing, and it engaged my identity as an artist, son of a farmer, and farmer.” After his family sold the plot, Moore obtained plans for a subdivision to be built on the property and scrupulously re-created the 250 homes, driveways, and numerous streets at one-third scale. Using sorghum for the houses and black-bearded wheat for asphalt, the project-titled “Rotations: Moore Estate” is a physical representation of what occurs when rural and metropolitan areas collide.

Over the past few years, in an effort to deal with, and better understand, what the eventual loss of the farm to development will mean to Matt and his family, the artist/farmer has been creating large-scale projects on his family farm. He has tried to visualize what it will look like and how it will be used once the family no longer has control of the property. His current project Rotations:Moore Estate is his largest to date. (New American City: Artists Look Forward Exhibition Information)(Randi Greenberg, Metropolis Magazine 2006)