In her New York City Studio, Carrie Moyer talks about pivotal events in her life that brought her to painting, and the influence history has had in her work.

For the past two decades, Carrie Moyer’s paintings have boldly merged political imagery, abstraction, and unapologetic visual pleasure. Complex and seductive, her paintings layer overlapping, biomorphic forms, vibrant colors, and a diversity of textures. They are also richly loaded with a range of historical, stylistic, and physical references that include Color Field, Social Realist, and Surrealist paintings, 1960s and ’70s counter culture graphics, 1970s feminist art, and bodily forms and fluids. Exploring the full capabilities of acrylic paint—what she calls the ugly step-child of oil paint—Moyer often works on the floor, pouring, rolling, stippling, mopping, and hand-working the paint, as well as adding sections of glitter.

CREDITS | Producer/Camera/Editor: Vickie Riley. 2nd Camera/Original Music: Brett Hartman. Interview: Ian Berry. ©The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College, 2013