Galleries & Artists
	Artists

Matt Moyer

Throughout my life, living near the Mississippi River , I have been surrounded by the industry that thrives around this major thoroughfare.  The history of this industrial environment and its methods and tooling heavily influence the various forms of my current body of work.  Diverse industrial forms, such as functioning and defunct machinery, lubricating devices, fictitious gaskets, boring bits for machining and containers or racks for storing tools, have inspired my work.  The textures, colors and layers of information found in the surfaces of these industrial objects serve as a basis for my surface treatment.  My forms can be categorized through several ceramic techniques.  One category combines press-molded nuts, bolts, screws and pipe fittings with non-functional pottery pieces and sculpture.  Other pieces blend ideas, textures and colors inspired by industry with functional pottery forms.  These textures, which range from multiple layers of peeled paint and grease to rust and marks from usage, fascinate me most.  I execute these textures through carving, incising, stamping and drilling while the clay is still wet.  I also use multiple layers of colored slips and metallic oxides over the carving as a second and third layer of information.  Last, I fire primarily with wood, often introducing soda or salt during the firing process.  The effects of the sodium and wood ash finish the work with another layer of information. 

Next