Alexander Gray Associates is pleased to announce the representation of Donald Moffett (b. 1955). In September 2025, the Gallery will present a solo exhibition of Moffett’s work.
Moffett was born in San Antonio, Texas and lives and works in New York. He interweaves political urgency with rigorous formal experimentation across disciplines. As a founding member of Gran Fury (1988–95), the artistic arm of ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), Moffett’s practice emerged from the crucible of 1980s AIDS activism. His paintings, sculptures, and installations resonate with this legacy, though his formal investigations have expanded beyond their initial sociopolitical imperative to encompass the climate crisis. Through innovative techniques, he creates charged spaces where aesthetic investigations and social consciousness coalesce, consistently pushing mediums beyond their conventional limits.
Moffett’s paintings, sculptures, and installations resonate with the legacy of his early activism, though his formal investigations have expanded beyond their initial sociopolitical imperative to encompass the climate crisis.
Moffett’s extruded oil paint and epoxy resin paintings are central to his oeuvre. Begun three decades ago, these abstractions feature textured peaks and glossy pools of pigment that evoke biological forms—roots, bacteria, orifices—while embodying the artist's philosophy that his works "say nothing but … show quite a bit." Moffett’s creative process deliberately transcends conventional categorization, merging industrial fabrication methods with fine art techniques to challenge established boundaries between painting, sculpture, and manufacturing. The resulting works achieve a distinctive tension: simultaneously calculated and spontaneous, they inhabit an intermediate space where intuitive expression meets mechanical precision. Moffett further disrupts traditional notions of the picture plane through strategies like drilling, slicing, and routing to reveal his work’s internal structure and the architectural space behind it. His deliberate perforations function as formal innovations and conceptual interventions, introducing themes of absence, fragility, and perseverance into seemingly impenetrable surfaces.
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