Holly Moe

About the Artist

Born in Wisconsin, schooled at UCLA and then earning an MFA from the University of Texas at San Antonio, Moe has settled in Bandera, Texas and has pursued various symbolic systems in unusual materials in an effort to unsettle contemporary mythologies.

Investigating motifs from vocabularies as disparate as Greek myths and mail-order advertisements, Moe mines the familiar, urging the viewer to realize the assumptions brought to art. She develops an elaborate craft through her experimentation with carpet, cutting it into exacting shapes and incising lines with gunpowder and fire. Generally, the carpet is a neutral buffer used to make the cold floor more comforting, serving as insulation between the harsh reality of the ground and our tender, particular toes. Moe animates the carpet to become more assertive, so that in losing its passivity it makes the viewer more aware of its useful presence. And unlike the consumable aesthetic niceties of a Navajo rug or an Indian killim, Moe’s carpets demand recognition.