Artist Donald Moffett’s newest exhibition “Snowflake” is a poetic combination of visually magnetic paintings and political bite that couldn’t be timelier. On view at Alexander Gray Associates in New York, the show features nine new extruded oil and spray paintings, and arrangements of bumper stickers that are free to take. All of it draws you within inches of the surfaces and leaves you with the inspiration and tools to consider and affect the world outside the gallery.
Donald Moffett, Lot 062525 (nature cult, first snow), 2025
Donald Moffett, Lot 062525 (nature cult, first snow), 2025 (detail)
Installation view: Donald Moffett: Snowflake, Alexander Gray Associates, New York, 2025
Moffett is well respected in two worlds: He’s a founding member of Gran Fury – the graphic design collective that emerged from ACT UP in the late 1980s, creating some of the most powerful and important media with the mission to end the AIDS pandemic. Gran Fury’s posters, stickers, and billboards made a massive impact in spite of censorship challenges and stand today as an inspiring example of persistence, necessary rebellion, and the power of creativity in social/political movements. He is also known for his unbelievably intriguing “extruded paintings” that build up oil paint with a grass-like effect on precision-carved plywood. “Snowflake” brilliantly combines the beauty, graphics, and activism to an effect that both comforts and challenges.
Donald Moffett, Lot 063025 (nature cult, early snow), 2025
Donald Moffett, Lot 063025 (nature cult, early snow), 2025 (detail)
Donald Moffett, Lot 063025 (nature cult, early snow), 2025 (detail)
“Snowflake” includes seven new white and pewter extruded paintings – resembling a strange fur more than oil paint from a distance. Suspended a few inches from the wall, each invites you to look simultaneously “at” and “through” them – a mix of physicality and weightlessness. These works extend Moffett’s NATURE CULT series launched in the 2010s to address accelerating climate change.
In the same room, two light blue “spray paintings” are equally captivating with mirror-like gloss finishes that absorb and reflect the viewer. Here the kaleidoscopic machine-carved holes also echo abstracted snowflakes.
Donald Moffett, Lot 022025 (nature cult, blue), 2025
Donald Moffett, Lot 022025 (nature cult, blue), 2025 (detail)
Donald Moffett, Lot 052525 (nature cult, melt 1), 2025
Moffett also demonstrates his mastery of the friction and impact of words. The title of the exhibition “Snowflake” can be seen the forms and colors of the paintings, but it also conjures up the word’s new popularity as a political insult. It’s playful and sharp; freeing and aggressive.
Installation view: Donald Moffett: Snowflake, Alexander Gray Associates, New York, 2025
Donald Moffett, Block 1: SCIENCE, 2025
The language play continues with three stacks of red bumper stickers that sit neatly on small white shelves. Each stack is so perfectly arranged that you would not be blamed for keeping your distance (always a good default policy in an exhibition space), but here you CAN take one off the top of the stack. Bold white text on eye-grabbing red backgrounds read “SCIENCE”, “LAUGH. RIOT”, and “KILL NOTHING” – inviting multiple interpretations that may vary given the viewer’s experiences and politics and especially where these stickers could eventually end up. Moffett isn’t just pulling you closer to invite a more sustained consideration of social and political challenges, he’s also providing the tools to do something.
Donald Moffett, Block 1: SCIENCE, 2025 (detail)
Finally, the last room holds a work from 2004 titled “Aluminum/White House Unmoored”. Created during the George W. Bush presidency, it’s a distorted video projection of the White House on a thick metallic oil painting. More than 20 years later, it speaks to both past and present, shifting and accumulating meaning over time.
Installation view: Donald Moffett: Snowflake, Alexander Gray Associates, New York, 2025
Donald Moffett “Snowflake” is on view at Alexander Gray Associates in New York through October 25th and well worth getting closer, feeling empowered, and taking a couple of bumper stickers home.
Installation view: Donald Moffett: Snowflake, Alexander Gray Associates, New York, 2025
What: Donald Moffett: Snowflake
Where: Alexander Gray Associates, 384 Broadway, New York
When: September 12 – October 25, 2025
All installation and full artwork images courtesy Alexander Gray Associates, New York; Anthony Meier, Mill Valley © 2025 Donald Moffett.
All detail images photographed by author, David Behringer.
