Robert Moya - Artist Statement

I make panels on which I build up a surface with about 10 thin layers of acrylic and water-based mixed media, each one clear or tinted. I cut into this surface, removing large areas that I then fill with small multi-colored tiles, which come from removed layers taken from the original panel or other panels and vary greatly in thickness, opacity, color, and texture. These may be tiled or smooth monochromatic areas and are organized along a vertical/horizontal axis. I have limited my practice to one material and one shape and a stable orientation. I choose this minimal economy in order to force innovation and a deeper investigation into certain nuanced relations in space. 2D and 3D – the material as painting and the material as sculpture or tiling – are uncertain categories. Ground and figure are not easily resolved. Intimacy and scale is in play. Even a sense of wholeness and parts, is in question. Each layer, which represents up to a week of labor, bonds together as one surface. Each tile claims its own tiny patch. All compose one map while holding common or easy spatial relations in suspense – in that double sense of preservation/stillness and anticipation/tension.

Resume

2007 San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, MFA candidate, painting

2005 California State University, Los Angeles, MA, applied linguistics

1996 University of New Mexico, BA, painting

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Professional Experience

Awards