Alexander Gray Associates announces the representation of Donald Moffett
Donald Moffett Lot 020425 (the probe, A), 2025 Oil on linen on panel with steel hardware 20 1/2 x 16 1/2 in (52.1 x 41.9 cm) Courtesy Alexander Gray Associates, New York; Anthony Meier, Mill Valley© 2025 Donald Moffett
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.
Donald Moffett Lot 020220 (early life, theta), 2020 Pigmented epoxy resin on wood panel with steel hardware 12 x 6 5/8 x 5 3/4 in (30.5 x 16.8 x 14.6 cm) Courtesy Alexander Gray Associates, New York; Anthony Meier, Mill Valley © 2025 Donald Moffett
Further expanding on this methodology, Moffett developed NATURE CULT in the mid-2010s. This ongoing project examines the climate crisis through complex investigations of surface and structure, language and graphics. The body of work features a variety of pierced and carved panels, found object sculptures and installations, bumper stickers, and vibrantly colored birdhouses—all melancholic tributes to the biodiversity threatened by widespread inaction. The series reveals how Moffett has never strayed from the core concerns that have animated his work for more than four decades: the relationship between abstraction and politics and the role of art in social discourse.
Moffett's artistic contributions lie not just in his formal innovations, but also in his ability to merge the political with the visual. His work demonstrates how art can maintain its relevance while engaging with both historical traditions and contemporary concerns, creating a space where aesthetics and politics coexist without compromising either.
Moffett’s work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions, including NATURE CULT, SEEDED, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockland (2024); DONALD MOFFETT + NATURE CULT + THE McNAY, McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX (2022); The Extravagant Vein, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, TX (2011), traveled to The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA, and Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY (both 2012); and Donald Moffett: What Barbara Jordan Wore, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, IL (2002). His work has also been featured in many group shows, including Gran Fury: Arte não é o bastante (Gran Fury: Art is Not Enough), Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP), Brazil (2024); This Morning, This Evening, So Soon: James Baldwin and the Voices of Queer Resistance, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. (2024); Every Moment Counts—AIDS and its Feelings, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo, Norway (2019); United by AIDS—An Exhibition about Loss, Remembrance, Activism and Art in Response to HIV/AIDS, Migros Museum für Gegenwartkunst, Zurich, Switzerland (2019); and the 1993 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, NY. Moffett’s work is featured in global public and private collections, including the Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas at Austin, TX; Brooklyn Museum, NY; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Hammer Museum, University of California, Los Angeles; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; The Menil Collection, Houston, TX; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; and Whitney Museum of American Art, NY, among others. Moffett recently received the Texas Medal of Arts Award, Texas Cultural Trust, Austin, and, as a member of Gran Fury, was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston in 2011. Moffett is also represented by Anthony Meier, Mill Valley, CA.
For more information about Alexander Gray Associates and this announcement, artists, and exhibitions, please visit their site here. The gallery can also be found on Instagram here.
