Originally printed in The Monitor on 9/17/2012.
By Linda Lewis
Having access to an artist’s oeuvre provides a unique opportunity to gain a broader perspective on the influences that shaped the artist and subsequently, the work. Artist and Emerita of Art from UTPA, Nancy Moyer, provides us with such an opportunity in her retrospective.
Artwork included, in this exhibition, ranges from the 1970s to the present. The 70s was an era of political foment and rebellion against the status quo in the United States. Fueled by energy from the civil rights and anti-war movements, women began to critically examine their place in the art world. With the feminist declaration that “the personal is political,” women began exploring the personal in their artwork. This exhibition shows us just how prickly a woman’s life can be.
A group of large scale pastel self-portraits create a striking focal point. Asunder is unique within the group, because it is the only self-portrait that expresses active palpable anger. Her rage is directed at a male-dominated bureaucratic system symbolized by a drawing of a man on paper--that she savagely rips in half.
The remaining images seem tragic because there is no outward anger or resistance to the horrific agony of flesh piercing cactus spines and other insults. However, Making it in Texas evoked a visceral reaction in this viewer. For her, there is only escape, and in Leaving the Past, we see our headless heroine sprinting off into the unknown, albeit still tethered to her past. The impetus to escape leads to several outcomes.
First, she explores the themes of change through death and rebirth in a series of intricately detailed drawings. In Academia, she photographically documents the pernicious effect employment in academia has had upon her life. In Angry Rabbit Dialogue, her head “crowns” through a cane bottomed chair. In this rebirth scene, she arrives armed with a gun.
As Moyer discovers tools to protect herself, the environment becomes less threatening. Finding her own voice is symbolized by typewriters hatching out of eggs. We also begin to see “spineless” cactus, as she develops a spine of her own, and tames her environment. In a telling series of “ranch” drawings, massive Zebu bulls, virile men, and a horse gaze benignly at the viewer.
Symbolic language morphs into actual text in more recent work. In Retrospect explores typographic and photo montage compositions reminiscent of a modernist movement that endures today. It seems fitting for an examination of her life in words and photos.
Secondly, continually changing materials and techniques seems to be a conditioned response to personal circumstances that is bolstered by developments in critical theory and new media. Moyer was schooled in a craft medium, jewelry/metalsmithing, but rejected it for some time for the classical techniques of painting and drawing. Later, she experimented with hand-made paper, Xerox printing, computer aided design and photography, and in recent years returned to jewelry/metalsmithing.
Similar themes across media create a cohesive look to the exhibition. An injection of wry humor often lightens the seriousness of the issues she tackles.
