Carrie Moyer: For some reason, I have a lot of trouble making a small painting.
Narrator: Carrie Moyer.
Carrie Moyer: You know, there are certain things that belong in the realm of fine art, and I'm saying that with air quotes and there are certain things that don't. Something like glitter, which I often use in my paintings, was ascribed to a sort of girlish sensibility. In my case, I brought it into the paintings because I was thinking about combining my own history coming up as a gay artist and the sort of sign systems of gay culture in New York in the 70s and 80s.
Acrylic paint is one of my long-term fascinations. As a young art student, we were all taught to paint with oil paint. Oil paint was treated as if it was what you're going to make your masterpiece with. Acrylic paint has only been around for about forty-five years. I'm interested in the relationship between this sort of daily-ness of kinds of color that are possible with plastic—because that is what acrylic is—and when it shows up on a canvas, it's saying, "I'm actually part of the world outside of the gallery. I am not this sort of exclusive thing."
