Andy Moses Painter

INTRODUCTION

Andy Moses (born 1962) is an American contemporary abstract painter based in Los Angeles active in the Light and Space Movement and Finish Fetish movements. He is the of son West Coast abstract artist Ed Moses.

In 1981 he developed a type of process painting that is simultaneously abstract and representational. Moses is interested in pushing the physical properties of paint through chemical reactions, viscosity interference, and gravity dispersion to create elaborate compositions that mimic nature and its forces.

EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION

Andy Moses was born in Los Angeles in 1962. As the son of Ed Moses, he grew up steeped in the California art movements of the time including his father's anti-style, California Cool, Light and Space, and Finish Fetish.

Moses attended California Institute of the Arts from 1979 to 1981. While at CalArts, and studied under Barbara Kruger, Michael Asher, and John Baldessari. Upon graduation, Moses decided to move to New York to pursue an art career.

While in New York he began to experiment with and later develop the painting style for which he is known. In 1986, he participated in his first group exhibition and was given a solo show shortly thereafter, in 1987. Since then, his work was included in several museum shows. In 2000, Moses moved back to California, choosing to be near the ocean.

FINDING INSPIRATION IN THE NATURAL WORLD

Moses has used a fairly consistent color palette inspired by surfing off the coast of California. When speaking about surfing and the ocean as his inspiration, Moses notes: "You never saw the same thing twice. The line was always moving. The colors were always shifting." He considers the intent of his work to blur the lines between abstraction and landscape.

With pearlescent pigments on concave and convex canvases, which curve inward or outward, the effect harnesses light and causes the painting to shift in depth and contrast as the viewer moves around it.

His process involves pouring, gravity, and tilting which causes the paint to flow and mix across the substrate allowing for spontaneity.

NOTABLE EXHIBITIONS

He has continued to exhibit his work in New York, Los Angeles, and abroad over the past thirty-five years. Among others, Moses has exhibited with the following museums: Frederick R. Weisman Foundation; Laguna Art Museum; Museum of Art & History, Lancaster, CA; and Contemporary Arts Center. He also enjoyed a survey exhibition at the Santa Monica College Pete and Susan Barrett Art Gallery that explored 30 years of his artistic output.