Background
Moffett was born in San Antonio, Texas, where he studied art and biology at Trinity University, earning a Bachelor.
Moffett was born in San Antonio, Texas, where he studied art and biology at Trinity University, earning a Bachelor.
He lives and works in New York City. As a painter, Moffett extends the traditional two-dimensional frame through non-traditional techniques such as prying open the canvas to paint the backside, perforating or suturing the painting’s surface, or loading it with paint forced into extreme textures. At other times, he transposes paintings into screens by incorporating video projections onto the canvas.
Moffett is recognized for his keen artistic critique of the world at large.
His influence by classical painters such as Goya and Manet is manifest in his blending of the subtle with the outlandish and structural experimentation with social critique. On May 20, 2011, Gran Fury received an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Massachusetts College of Art and Design.
Moffett is represented by Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York, and Anthony Meier Fine Arts in San Francisco. 2011-2012: The Extravagant Vein, mid-career survey exhibition, traveled to Contemporary Arts Museum Houston.
Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, Skidmore College (Saratoga Springs, New York).
And Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Moffett, Donald. “Sex with Sheila Hicks.” Art in America, November 30, 2012. Dunkerley Dialogue: Donald Moffett with Mason Stokes.
Tang Museum, 2012.
Donald Moffett on This Will Have Been: Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s. Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, March 21, 2012. "Troy Schulze Chats with Donald Moffett." National Public Radio, November
28, 2011.
Whitney Museum of American Art, New New York Museum of Modern Art, New New York Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Los Angeles
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. Blanton Museum of Art, Austin.
The subject matter of his paintings—from landscape and nature to politics and history—are poetic, provocative, and at times humorous. While his artwork provides contemporary views on important topics of our modern-day lives, it is also a meditation on the timeless and universal issues of love, loss, alienation, and death.
Moffett is a founding member of Gran Fury, the artistic arm of the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome activist group ACT Uttar Pradesh.