Four Dreams in an Open Room

To create textural variation, Moyer thins her paint with differing quantities of water; she also uses spray bottles to saturate paint that she has already applied. As seen here, this results in bubbles, channels, and modulations across the surface. Speaking of the joys of her dynamic production process, Moyer has said, “There is so much maneuvering of these big canvases, tipping them at odd angles. . . . Using gravity and the tension of the stretcher to mix color and move the paint around is where all the pleasure is.” However, control is also central to her work: “Every time I do the pour, I go back in and ‘manicure’ it. I want things to overlap in different ways.”Despite her rigorous strategies—and as suggested by the ethereal quality of this work’s title—painting remains a fundamentally pleasurable endeavor for Moyer. “I’m going for beauty, seduction, and play,” she explains. “A physical experience, an optical experience.”