Carrie Moyer
Encyclopedia
Carrie Moyer is an American
painter and writer living in Brooklyn
, NY. Moyer's paintings and public art projects have been widely exhibited nationally and internationally since the early 1990s.
in 1985 and an MFA from the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts
at Bard College
in 2000. In 1995 she was a student at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Moyer has been awarded numerous grants, awards and residencies including a Joan Mitchell
Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant and an Anonymous Was A Woman Award (both 2009), Creative Capital Grant (2000), Elaine de Kooning Memorial Fellowship (1999), Peter Norton
Family Foundation Project Grant (1999) and the National Studio Program at PS1/Institute for Contemporary Art, New York, NY (1996). She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Art at Hunter College
. Moyer has been represented by CANADA Gallery in New York City since 2003.
Critic Martha Schwendener has written about Moyer's paintings:
, and evolved into a stand-alone agitprop duo that was active for 17 years. Dyke Action Machine! produced over 15 projects during the course of their collaboration.
Throughout the 1990s, Moyer designed agitprop, graphics and posters for a number of gay and lesbian activist organizations based in New York City. These include Queer Nation
, the Lesbian Avengers
, the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization (ILGO) and the New York City Anti-Violence Project.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
painter and writer living in Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
, NY. Moyer's paintings and public art projects have been widely exhibited nationally and internationally since the early 1990s.
Life and Work
Moyer was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1960. She received a BFA from Pratt InstitutePratt Institute
Pratt Institute is a private art college in New York City located in Brooklyn, New York, with satellite campuses in Manhattan and Utica. Pratt is one of the leading undergraduate art schools in the United States and offers programs in Architecture, Graphic Design, History of Art and Design,...
in 1985 and an MFA from the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts
Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts
Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts is a graduate program associated with Bard College that grants Master of Fine Arts degrees.Founded in 1981, Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts is a nontraditional school for interdisciplinary study in the visual and creative arts...
at Bard College
Bard College
Bard College, founded in 1860 as "St. Stephen's College", is a small four-year liberal arts college located in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.-Location:...
in 2000. In 1995 she was a student at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Moyer has been awarded numerous grants, awards and residencies including a Joan Mitchell
Joan Mitchell
Joan Mitchell was a "second generation" abstract expressionist painter. She was an essential member of the American Abstract expressionist movement, even though much of her career took place in France. Along with Lee Krasner, Grace Hartigan, and Helen Frankenthaler she was one of her era's few...
Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant and an Anonymous Was A Woman Award (both 2009), Creative Capital Grant (2000), Elaine de Kooning Memorial Fellowship (1999), Peter Norton
Peter Norton
Peter Norton is an American programmer, software publisher, author, and philanthropist. He is best known for the computer programs and books that bear his name. Norton sold his PC-Software business to Symantec Corporation in 1990....
Family Foundation Project Grant (1999) and the National Studio Program at PS1/Institute for Contemporary Art, New York, NY (1996). She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Art at Hunter College
Hunter College
Hunter College, established in 1870, is a public university and one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York, located on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Hunter grants undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate degrees in more than one hundred fields of study, and is recognized...
. Moyer has been represented by CANADA Gallery in New York City since 2003.
Critic Martha Schwendener has written about Moyer's paintings:
- "Painting is a neurotically self-conscious medium—it's always looking over its shoulder, responding to earlier eras and earlier ideas. Carrie Moyer puts that self-consciousness at the center of her work. But where mash-ups of different periods and styles have become popular with post-postmodern painters (and often end up looking like conceptual train wrecks), her canvases are cool, seamless—almost alchemical.
- Slipping between abstract and representational, the raw canvases are built up with strata of translucent and opaque color, positive and negative shapes, and solids and silhouettes that reference different historical periods: ancient fertility figures with bulging hips; vases with breasts circling their perimeters; murky blobs that recall the paintings of biomorphic SurrealismSurrealismSurrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
. But there's an unsettling subtext here, a suggestion of the way women have served as talismanic muse-objects in past art instead of intelligent innovators...
Dyke Action Machine!
Between 1991 and 2008, Moyer was one half of Dyke Action Machine! (DAM!), a public art project that she founded with photographer Sue Schaffner. One of the first queer interventionist public art projects, DAM! dissected mainstream visual culture by inserting lesbian images into commercial contexts. It began as working group of the 90s activist organization, Queer NationQueer Nation
Queer Nation was an organization founded in March 1990 in New York City, USA by AIDS activists from ACT UP. The four founders were outraged at the escalation of anti-gay and lesbian violence on the streets and prejudice in the arts and media...
, and evolved into a stand-alone agitprop duo that was active for 17 years. Dyke Action Machine! produced over 15 projects during the course of their collaboration.
Throughout the 1990s, Moyer designed agitprop, graphics and posters for a number of gay and lesbian activist organizations based in New York City. These include Queer Nation
Queer Nation
Queer Nation was an organization founded in March 1990 in New York City, USA by AIDS activists from ACT UP. The four founders were outraged at the escalation of anti-gay and lesbian violence on the streets and prejudice in the arts and media...
, the Lesbian Avengers
Lesbian Avengers
The Lesbian Avengers began in New York City in 1992 as "a direct action group focused on issues vital to lesbian survival and visibility." Dozens of other chapters quickly emerged worldwide, a few expanding their mission to include questions of gender, race, and class.Though some groups continue...
, the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization (ILGO) and the New York City Anti-Violence Project.
Art Reviews and Essays
Moyer's writing has appeared in Art in America, Artforum, Modern Painters, the Brooklyn Rail and other publications. Since 1997, her essays have also been included in a range of anthologies — from Queers in Space: Communities, Public Spaces and Sites of Resistance (Bay Press, 1997) to The Studio Reader: On the Space of Artists (Michelle Grabner and Mary Jane Jacobs, editors; University of Chicago Press, 2010).Selected Writings
- "Carrie Moyer." Grabner, Michelle and Mary Jane Jacobs, eds. The Studio Reader: On the Space of Artists. Chicago. University of Chicago Press, 2010
- Moyer, Carrie. "So Appealing, So Different: Carrie Moyer on the Women of Pop," Artforum, April 2010
- Moyer, Carrie. "Alina Szapocznikow: My American Dream," The Brooklyn Rail, October 2010
- Moyer, Carrie. "Maria Lassnig: The Pitiless Eye," Art in America, January 2009
- Moyer, Carrie. "Dona Nelson: Brain Stain," The Brooklyn Rail, October 2006
External links
- CANADA Gallery, New York, NY
- Dyke Action Machine!
- Dyke Action Machine!, "Gynadome: a Separate Paradise" funded by Creative Capital
- The Lesbian Avengers
- Carrie Moyer website