Sam Moyer
Ferns Teeth

Sam Moyer: Ferns Teeth is a survey of the artist’s varied approaches to working with stone, a primary material for Moyer over the past ten years. Fascinated by the geologic time of rock and its many industrial and architectural uses, Moyer employs salvaged stone and aggregate concrete to explore balance, weight, and scale. Ferns Teeth includes recent examples of her paintings, sculpture, and photographs, which are presented across three successive galleries, each of which offers an immersive viewing experience. Attuned to the emotional impact of light and space, Moyer investigates her longstanding interest in the viewer’s sensory experience.

In the exhibition’s first gallery, viewers are greeted by Fern Friend Grief Growth, a large-scale stone painting comprised of reclaimed marble set into painted plaster, tailor-fit to the architecture of the room. The work is faced by an artist-made marble bench that offers a direct tactile experience with the material and a contemplative atmosphere, inviting a cinematic view.

The smaller space of the second gallery provides an intimate moment for viewing Moyer’s Bluestone Dependent 4 alongside a series of wall works that breach the boundaries of sculpture and photography. The free-standing sculpture reflects the artist’s interest in the relationship between natural and industrial materials and the structural balance that is achieved by the design of their joinery. The two pieces of stone are reliant on each other for stability, secured in place by the particular angle at which they interlock. Accompanying the sculpture are four silver gelatin prints placed within artist-made aggregate concrete frames. These pieces are specific to Long Island’s East End as Moyer collects the beach stones used in the frames from the same location as the eroded sea walls depicted in her photographs.

In the final gallery, Moyer presents ten small-scale paintings that are installed in a linear fashion, encouraging us to view them by circling the space rather than from a single vantage point. Titled Clippings, these works evoke the sense that they have been cut, or trimmed, from a larger piece in an act of regeneration, or forming new growth.

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.

Exhibition Support
Sam Moyer: Ferns Teeth is made possible, in part, thanks to the generous support of Jacqueline Brody; The Deborah Buck Foundation; Linda Hackett and Melinda Hackett/ CAL Foundation; Sean Kelly, New York/Los Angeles; BLUM; The Evelyn Toll Family Foundation; Herman Goldman Foundation; Lauren and Steven P. Schwartz; Yanina and Allan Spivack; Alison and Donald Weiss; Karen and Dennis Mehiel; and a donor who wishes to remain Anonymous.

The Parrish Art Museum’s programs are made possible, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, and by the property taxpayers from the Southampton School District and the Tuckahoe Common School District.

About Sam Moyer
Sam Moyer (American, b. 1983) received her BFA from the Corcoran College of Art and Design and her MFA from Yale University. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at the Bass Museum, Miami; the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis; the Drawing Center, New York; the FLAG Art Foundation, New York; the Hill Art Foundation, New York; LAND, Los Angeles; MoMA PS1, Queens; the Parrish Art Museum, New York; Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm; Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus; and White Flag Projects, St. Louis. Moyer’s large-scale outdoor sculpture Doors for Doris (2020), commissioned by Public Art Fund, was on view in the Doris C. Freedman Plaza in Central Park, New York from September 2020 through October 2021. Her recent solo exhibitions include Memory Mine (2023) at the Jule Collins Smith Museum, Auburn; Relief (2022) at Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels; Good Friend (2021) at Kayne Griffin, Los Angeles; and Tone (2021) at Sean Kelly Gallery, New York.

Moyer’s work is featured in prominent public collections, including the Davis Museum, Wellesley College, Massachusetts; the Morgan Library & Museum, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven; the Aïshti Foundation, Beirut; and the Louis Vuitton Foundation, Paris.