Opening on June 30 and running through September 29, the Parrish Art Museum presents solo shows by Eddie Martinez and Sam Moyer. The exhibitions offer a unique journey into the minds and works of these acclaimed artists, from Martinez’s vibrant, large-scale paintings inspired by his son’s fascination with butterflies to Moyer’s exploration of materiality and light.
Celebrated for his bright, bold, and colorful paintings, Eddie Martinez will present a new body of work made specifically for the Parrish. Taking full advantage of the Museum’s expansive space and high ceilings, Martinez is creating six 12-foot tall Bufly paintings. Like much of his work, these canvases are imbued with a personal iconography. The artist started the Bufly series in 2021 when his son Arthur, who was two at the time, became fascinated with butterflies, mispronouncing them as “buflies.” Martinez has been painting them ever since.
Typically beginning with black paint to create an outline, Martinez then layers paint to bring each Bufly to life, injecting an abundance of texture and color to his canvases. Each painting reflects the joy and brightness that pervades Martinez’s practice, and is made surprisingly intimate by the artist, where viewers are reminded of the physical demands of such large-scale works, with some of the canvases even featuring traces of the artist’s shoeprint.
Martinez is best known for his large-scale wall works incorporating figuration and abstraction, painting and drawing, which foreground his signature muscular brushwork. The artist frequently places his forms and figures against monochrome backgrounds that serve to delineate and emphasize his urgent strokes. His paintings incorporate bold contours through the combination of mediums such as oil, enamel, and spray paint, and often include collaged found objects.
“Eddie Martinez: Buflies” is organized by Corinne Erni, Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Chief Curator, Art and Education and Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs, with additional support from Kaitlin Halloran, Assistant Curator and Publications Coordinator.
Following on the heels of her first career-spanning monograph, Sam Moyer’s solo exhibition at the Parrish Art Museum will showcase the artist’s relationship to material and light as a throughline in her practice, displaying the range of her processes, and bodies of work, across three galleries. Focusing each space on a specific material relationship, Moyer presents us with a large-scale stone painting tailor-fit to the architecture of the room, sculptural photographs whose composition are specific to the landscape of Eastern Long Island, and a series of smaller, more representational wall works. Consistent with Moyer’s habit of manifesting a directly tactile experience with the visual materials at hand, two of the three galleries will be outfitted with artist-made marble benches and visitors will be able to play on hand-cast concrete backgammon boards in the Museum’s lobby.
Since 2008, Sam Moyer has developed a distinctive language of abstraction that considers questions of value, labor, and beauty. Her practice has evolved from its more conceptual and process-based origins to address formal and theoretical issues regarding the construct of painting. Examining traditional roles of painting and sculpture, Moyer reframes the painted surface as a sculptural field in which fragments of previously used stone are paired with hand-painted canvas to create dynamic compositions. She manipulates these found textures and materials into powerful and evocative abstract works that evince beauty, humor, balance, and chance, employing the hand-made and readymade.
“Sam Moyer: Ferns Teeth” is organized by Corinne Erni, Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Chief Curator, Art and Education and Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs, with additional support from Kaitlin Halloran, Assistant Curator and Publications Coordinator.