Sam Moyer: Ferns Teeth is a survey of the artist’s varied approaches to working with stone, a primary material for Moyer over the past ten years. Fascinated by the geologic time of rock and its many industrial and architectural uses, Moyer employs salvaged stone and aggregate concrete to explore balance, weight, and scale. Ferns Teeth includes recent examples of her paintings, sculpture, and photographs, which are presented across three successive galleries, each of which offers an immersive viewing experience. Attuned to the emotional impact of light and space, Moyer investigates her longstanding interest in the viewer’s sensory experience.
In the exhibition’s first gallery, viewers are greeted by Fern Friend Grief Growth, a large-scale stone painting comprised of reclaimed marble set into painted plaster, tailor-fit to the architecture of the room. The work is faced by an artist-made marble bench that offers a direct tactile experience with the material and a contemplative atmosphere, inviting a cinematic view.
The smaller space of the second gallery provides an intimate moment for viewing Moyer’s Bluestone Dependent 4 alongside a series of wall works that breach the boundaries of sculpture and photography. The free-standing sculpture reflects the artist’s interest in the relationship between natural and industrial materials and the structural balance that is achieved by the design of their joinery. The two pieces of stone are reliant on each other for stability, secured in place by the particular angle at which they interlock. Accompanying the sculpture are four silver gelatin prints placed within artist-made aggregate concrete frames. These pieces are specific to Long Island’s East End as Moyer collects the beach stones used in the frames from the same location as the eroded sea walls depicted in her photographs.
In the final gallery, Moyer presents ten small-scale paintings that are installed in a linear fashion, encouraging us to view them by circling the space rather than from a single vantage point. Titled Clippings, these works evoke the sense that they have been cut, or trimmed, from a larger piece in an act of regeneration, or forming new growth.