Sam Moyer | Tone - - Viewing Room - Sean Kelly Gallery

Sam Moyer’s new body of work, featuring a series of intimately scaled paintings and sculptures, is focused on connection, contemplation, and exploring the boundaries of the relationship between maker and material. Created partly in response to her major installation Doors for Doris (currently on view at the entrance to Central Park on the Doris C. Freedman Plaza), Moyer’s new paintings and sculptures represent a reaction to that work’s monumentality and relate directly to the proportions of the body, with a heightened sense of the corporeal. Due to limitations and constraints imposed by the pandemic, these new works, fabricated in Moyer’s studio, focus on a more intimate scale.

Daisy Chain, 2021
marble, acrylic on plaster-coated canvas mounted to MDF

53 1/2 x 38 1/2 x 2 inches (135.9 x 97.8 x 5.1 cm) SM-P.21.1434

I liked the flexibility of the word tone, it’s light, it’s color, it’s mood. In the early days of the pandemic in the city, there was a tone. It was so quiet… it was the tone that we couldn't break away from, sort of the intangible experience we all shared.
- Sam Moyer

Bear Trap, 2021

marble, plaster and hand painted canvas mounted to MDF

32 x 25 3/4 x 1 inches (81.3 x 65.4 x 2.5 cm) SM-P.21.1412

Pea Pod, 2021
marble, plaster and hand painted canvas mounted to MDF

36 x 31 x 1 inches (91.4 x 78.7 x 2.5 cm) SM-P.21.1413

Hound of Heaven, 2020
marble, plaster and hand painted canvas mounted to MDF

58 1/2 x 49 x 1 inches (148.6 x 124.5 x 2.5 cm) SM-P.20.1423

Trouble Mind, 2021
marble, plaster and hand painted canvas mounted to MDF

46 x 34 x 1 inches (116.8 x 86.4 x 2.5 cm) SM-P.21.1415

Bringing two things together, creating a vibration—that vibration is the art.
- Sam Moyer

Little Pitcher, 2020
marble, plaster and hand painted canvas mounted to MDF

52 x 40 1/4 x 1 inches (132.1 x 102.2 x 2.5 cm) SM-P.20.1421

Side Affect, 2020
marble, plaster and hand painted canvas mounted to MDF

52 1/2 x 38 1/4 x 1 inches (133.3 x 97.2 x 2.5 cm) SM-P.20.1422

Seaming, 2020
marble, plaster and hand painted canvas mounted to MDF

49 x 41 x 1 inches (124.5 x 104.1 x 2.5 cm) SM-P.20.1420

Moyer considers her new wall-mounted pieces to be emphatically about qualities of painting, surface light, and layers. The new works bring in a plaster component that references the historic surface of fresco while simultaneously representing construction and stucco, the bridge of materials between the industrial and art. Still incorporating stone remnants as an integral part of the composition, the paintings' surfaces are more intimate, rich, complex and painterly.

Helping Hand, 2020
marble, plaster and hand painted canvas mounted to MDF

43 x 33 x 1 inches (109.2 x 83.8 x 2.5 cm) SM-P.20.1414

On The Flip Side, 2020
marble, plaster and hand painted canvas mounted to MDF

48 x 36 x 1 inches (121.9 x 91.4 x 2.5 cm) SM-P.20.1417

Butter Friend, 2021
marble, plaster and hand painted canvas mounted to MDF

48 x 44 1/4 x 1 inches (121.9 x 112.4 x 2.5 cm) SM-P.21.1418

Borrowed Cup, 2021
marble, plaster and hand painted canvas mounted to MDF

46 1/2 x 44 1/2 x 1 inches (118.1 x 113 x 2.5 cm) SM-P.21.1416

The goal is to create work that exists in the space between assumed material roles and defined categories.
-Sam Moyer

Building layers with hand-applied plaster, Moyer creates richly nuanced surfaces, thickly impastoed in certain areas, smooth and glossy in others. Moyer relates her creative process to "going with the flow," a journey of acceptance and moving forward. Taking inspiration from external stimuli—the materials she uses and the space between herself and the world—Moyer follows an instinctual guiding force. She states, "It's a relaxation into the given path, but that doesn't eliminate the pain of the terrain.” With these new works, Moyer delves deep to create paintings that reflect a very personal process.

Goodnight Nobody, 2021
marble, plaster and hand painted canvas mounted to MDF

48 1/2 x 49 x 1 inches (123.2 x 124.5 x 2.5 cm) SM-P.21.1419

Circle Square, 2021
slate, marble, plaster and hand painted canvas mounted to MDF

83 1/2 x 61 x 1 1/2 inches (212.1 x 154.9 x 3.8 cm) SM-P.21.1425

Big Secret, 2021
stone, plaster and hand painted canvas mounted to MDF

66 1/2 x 52 1/2 x 1 inches (168.9 x 133.3 x 2.5 cm) SM-P.21.1424

April City, 2021
marble, plaster and hand painted canvas mounted to MDF

51 x 38 x 1 inches (129.5 x 96.5 x 2.5 cm) SM-P.21.1426

Sketch for Sean, 2021
marble
30 x 26 1/2 x 1 inches (76.2 x 67.3 x 2.5 cm) SM-S.21.1433

The process of searching for, collecting, and responding to the character of stone is a significant part of Moyer’s practice. Represented throughout her body of work are fragments of richly colored stone that originated from different places across the globe. Each stone contains marks from its previous industrial usage: its life as a kitchen countertop, an interior renovation, or a tabletop from a local New York City park.

Scale and the experience of space have always been central to my thinking; how one experiences art through a space that beckons or resists.
- Sam Moyer

The sculptures serve as both complement and counterpoint to the paintings. Each is composed of joined panels held together by tension, visually mirroring the act of codependency. Juxtaposing forms that alternate between the biomorphic and geometric, they are composed of soapstone remnants from the artist's home and aggregate concrete (similar to terrazzo), partnered with hand-poured concrete segments. The exposed concrete joints reveal an assemblage of stones gathered from beaches along the Long Island Sound. Sandblasted to echo found fragments of sea wall near the artist's home, the markings emphasize the passage of time represented through erosion.

Dependents 4, 2021
soapstone and blue pigmented concrete with beach stone aggregate
38 3/4 x 48 7/16 x 18 1/2 inches (98.5 x 123 x 47 cm) SM-S.21.1438

Dependents 3, 2021
soapstone and terrazzo
31 1/4 x 23 1/16 x 14 9/16 inches (79.4 x 58.5 x 37 cm) SM-S.21.1437

Dependents 8, 2021
soapstone and terrazzo
39 1/16 x 29 3/4 x 13 1/4 inches (99.3 x 75.5 x 33.7 cm) SM-S.21.1442

Dependents 2, 2021
soapstone and terrazzo
31 3/4 x 19 1/2 x 14 9/16 inches (80.7 x 49.5 x 37 cm) SM-S.21.1436

If a piece balances the physical density of sculpture while echoing the speed or lightness of a drawing, it is an experiential success for me.
- Sam Moyer

Dependents 1, 2021
soapstone and terrazzo
37 3/16 x 17 15/16 x 15 3/8 inches (94.5 x 45.5 x 39 cm) SM-S.21.1435

Dependents 6, 2021
soapstone and blue pigmented concrete with beach stone aggregate
30 11/16 x 23 1/4 x 12 5/8 inches (78 x 59 x 32 cm) SM-S.21.1440

Dependents 7, 2021
soapstone and terrazzo
23 1/16 x 39 3/4 x 14 3/4 inches (58.5 x 101 x 37.5 cm) SM-S.21.1441

Moyer has also begun a new series of paintings that she considers scaled-up versions of the drawings from her Payne series. By expanding the amount of surface space in these works, Moyer is able to create paintings that more closely echo the physicality of the gestures that go into their making. Moyer uses contrasting matte and gloss paints to reflect and absorb light as the viewer observes the paintings from different angles, allowing for these two-dimensional works to more actively participate within the three-dimensional space they occupy.

Large Payne 6, 2021
oil paint on gessoed wood panel
panel: 60 x 48 inches (152.4 x 121.9 cm)
framed: 60 3/4 x 48 3/4 x 2 1/4 inches (154.3 x 123.8 x 5.7 cm) SM-P.21.1427

Large Payne 7, 2021
oil paint on gessoed wood panel
panel: 60 x 48 inches (152.4 x 121.9 cm)
framed: 60 3/4 x 48 3/4 x 2 1/4 inches (154.3 x 123.8 x 5.7 cm) SM-P.21.1428

Large Payne 11, 2021
oil paint on gessoed wood panel
panel: 60 x 48 inches (152.4 x 121.9 cm)
framed: 60 3/4 x 48 3/4 x 2 1/4 inches (154.3 x 123.8 x 5.7 cm) SM-P.21.1432

Doors for Doris, 2020

bluestone, poured concrete, assorted marble and steel

presented by Public Art Fund at Doris C. Freedman Plaza

September 16, 2020 - October 3, 2021

photo: Nicholas Knight, Courtesy Public Art Fund, NY

Sam Moyer's first solo public art installation, Doors for Doris, commissioned by Public Art Fund, is on view at the entrance to Central Park on Doris C. Freedman Plaza through October 3, 2021. Her works are featured in prominent public collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven; the Morgan Library, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Louis Vuitton Foundation, Paris; The Aïshti Foundation, Beirut; and the Davis Museum, Wellesley College, Massachusetts. Moyer has exhibited her work at The Drawing Center, New York; The Bass Museum, Miami, FL; University of Albany Art Museum, New York; The Public Art Fund, New York; White Flag Projects and The Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis, MO; LAND, Los Angeles; and Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm. Moyer has participated in important group exhibitions, including Inherent Structure, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH; Painting/Object, The FLAG Art Foundation, New York, NY; and Greater New York Between Spaces at PS1 Contemporary Art Center, Queens. In 2018 she was the subject of a large-scale solo presentation at Art Basel Unlimited.

Exhibition Programming

ARTLAND 3D Exhibition Walkthrough

The Brooklyn Rail - Sam Moyer with Tom McGlynn: New Social Environment #268

Virtual Conversation: Sam Moyer and Brett Littman, Director of The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, March 31, 2021

Virtual Exhibition Tour: Sean Kelly and Sam Moyer in conversation, March 18, 2021