Patrick Moya

Moya arrived in Nice at the age of fifteen.

He studied Fine Arts at the Villa Arson for three years. Inspired by the theory of Marshall McLuhan, he invented a TV show called Bonzour Bonzour where he is a TV artist. It was his first experimentation in video art.[1] For ten years, he was hired as a nude model for the art students.

In the early 1980s, assimilating the art work to the signature, Moya works only on the letters of his name, M-O-Y-A, saying that « art is signature ». For example, in 1991, he built a monumental steel sculpture in Taiwan with the four letters of his name, during a sculpture symposium, for the garden of the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts.[2]

After this non-figurative period, he created (1997) his first alter ego, a caricatural self-portrait inspired by the character of Pinocchio which allows him to represent himself in his works.[3] A personal universe appears : first of all with the creation of Dolly, (1999), a character inspired by the famous cloned sheep, which become the visual identity of the « Dolly Party » (techno evenings in the South of France), as well as one of the central characters of the Moya universe (« Moya Land »).

Soon in 1996, he made his first exhibition in a museum (big canvases and steel sculptures) for the MAMAC, the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nice.[4]

Moya become a digital artist since his early work on computer in the mid-80s: now, since 2007, he is the owner of a virtual Moya Land in the 3D web of Second Life.

In summer 2011, the story of Moya civilization was depicted on the walls of the art center La Malmaison, in Cannes. This exhibition, also built in SL, allowed visitors to meet the artist from a distance, to ask questions and to visit with him his virtual.[5]

In December 2015, he returned to his hometown of Troyes for an installation « in situ » : he painted the entire exhibition on the walls of the Maison du Boulanger, murals which will be deleted at the end of the exhibition.[6]

Then, Moya was chosen by the curator of the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua, Peter Assmann, for a major monographic exhibition in the Cantina, under the title « Il laboratory della metamorfosi » (the laboratory of metamorphoses, 2016).[7]

From december 2017, a big retrospective in the "Espace Lympia" (with the support of Alpes Maritimes department) on the harbor of Nice : with the title Le Cas Moya / l’exposition] », the scenography of the exhibition presented all the different sides of his universe, since the childhood to the metaverse.[8]

In Italy, Moya exhibited in the Palazzo Saluzzo Paesana, avril 2018 (Torino, Italy).[9]

And, in 2019, for the Royal Palace of Caserta (Reggia di Caserta, Italy), Moya is during one month a "Royal Transmedia", with several very large-format paintings, a series of « neo-classical » portraits ( in reference to the Borboni) as well as videos showing his virtual universe.[10]

After the inauguration of the New Moya Chapel » (juin 2019), a little chapel painted walls and ceiling, in the village of Le Mas (Alpes Maritimes, France),[11] he painted, in situ, an ephemeral mural (sort of giant cabinet of curiosities, 2020) on the walls of a room of the Massena Museum in Nice, as part of a famous local gallery owner.[12]

In november 2020, a new exhibition « La Télé de Moya » (The Moya TV) show his first projects and theories about « television live as the future of art » (L'Artistique art center, in Nice).[13]

In 2022, a new biography was published, "Le Cas Moya", (Moya case), who proved the coherence of his work: Moya wrote his name (1979/1989) - Moya tagged anonymous images with his name (1990 /1996) - Little "moya" appeared alone in his work (1996 /1999) - Moya created his 2D universe (1999 /2007) - Moya became Master of his 3D universe (2007/2015). The dream of Moya is coming true : "to be Tintin rather Hergé, The Joconde rather Leonardo da Vinci … To be a Creature living in his art work, living a second life of a Creature playing to be an Artist".[14]

For the spring/summer collection 2023 of Baby Dior, he signed with Christian Dior Couture for the creation of a rabbit and an original calligraphy for the name of DIOR. As the magazine Avenue Montaigne] announced; «  in collaboration with the French artist Patrick Moya, Baby Dior presents a resolutely pop capsule. Inhabited by the singular and plural aesthetics of the visual artist-performer from Nice, the creations feature a cheerful pink rabbit celebrating the Chinese zodiac sign of the year 2023 ».[15]

Three personal exhibitions in the spring of 2023: Moyaland, at the Chateau de Courcelles in Montigny-lès-Metz; "Moya, the little ceramist", at the Terra Rossa ceramics museum in Salernes, and "Moya, the Master of Avatars", at the Chateau-Musée Edgar Mélik in Cabries.

On June 16, 2023, inauguration by Christian Estrosi, Mayor of Nice, of the "Grande Dolly Bleue", resin sculpture 240 cm high, officially installed on Place du Pin.[16]

Since 1985, he began making digital using a Thomson MO5. He also used celluloid as medium on which to scratch his name and play it back as film art/art film. He uses computer in his art, making 3D images, then 3D videos, until 2007, when he discovered the "Second Life" environment: there, he built his new Moya Land and by extension, has spread the Moya label to the virtual frontier.

In October 2008, he participated in an international exhibition entitled "Rinascimento virtuale" (Virtual Renaissance, art in Second Life), initiated by the Italian journalist Mario Gerosa, which took place in the National Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology of the city of Florence in Italy : an entire room was devoted to the "Moya civilization".[17]

From 2008, he was considered a digital artist.[18]

Today, Moya is living between real and virtual worlds, and, with his avatar, he answers to journalists (Radio Canada, 2013), to students (school of Fine Arts of Venice, Quebec, Zurich or Milan), he participates or organizes many exhibitions, real or virtual, reproduces Art Fairs or Museums (Palais de Tokyo in Paris, Ceramics Museum in Vallauris …), works with a chief (Christian Sinicropi of Restaurant "La Palme d'Or" in Cannes). He also receives visitors worldwide and makes for them a guiding tour in a virtual car.

Since 2009, he realize the "cyber carnival" every year, in partnership with the Nice Tourist Office. With the Covid 19 health crisis, the 2021 edition of the Nice carnival being cancelled, it was possible to experience a virtual version of this carnival in virtual Moyaland.[19]

Today, Moyaland is “the first French tourist universe”.[20]

Moya is a prolific artist touching on everything from artistic happening, live painting, ceramics, computer, drawings, fashion art, muralism, painting, projection art, sculpture and video art. His body of work has been inventoried in a catalogue raisonné that comprises over 4500 pieces in the span of 40 years between 1971 and 2011. His work has been plastered on the city of Cannes's public transport system's mini-buses,[21] on cars (Porsche, Fiat 500, Deux-chevaux, Smart, Gordini…), on cows from "Cow Parades" and cowbells, on designer clothes[22] and promotional USB cards issued by Cannes's Hotel Martinez, as well as France's famous Guide Michelin. He has also designed dolls for UNICEF. Moya is one of the very few modern artists to be commissioned to paint a Catholic church,[23] dedicated to Saint Jean Baptiste in Clans.

His frescos can be found in public buildings in Monaco (namely the Princess Grace hospital), in a college ("La Bourgade" in La Trinité), in Pasteur 2 Hospital (2015). And in two "Moya chapels", in Clans and Le Mas, two small villages of Alpes Maritimes.

• 1987 : « Les Caprices de Moya », Galerie municipale des Ponchettes, Nice, France
• 1995 : « The sculpture exhibition of Moya », Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Art, Taiwan
• 1996 : « MOYA-MOYA », MAMAC, Nice, France
• 2003 : « L'Arsenal de Moya », Rétrospective, L'Arsenal, Metz, France
• 2006 : « L'Arche de Moya », Toit de la Grande Arche de La Défense, Paris, France
• 2011 : « La Civilisation Moya », Centre d'art La Malmaison, Cannes, France
• 2013 : "Moya in the classics", Radium art Center, Busan, South Korea
• 2013 : « L'Universo Moya a Dronero », Teatro Iris, Dronero, Italy
• 2015 : "Moya en abondance", Collégiale St Pierre-la-Cour, Le Mans, France
• 2015 : « Moya Circus », Museo d'Arte Contemporanea (MAC 3), Caserta, Italy
• 2015 : "Moya", Miller White Fine Arts, Cape Cod, USA
• 2016 : « Il laboratoire delle metamorfosi », Cantina, Palazzo ducale, Mantoux, Italy
• 2016 (juin/août) : Voyage au Moya Land, Château Madame de Graffigny, Villers-lès-Nancy
• 2017/2018 (décembre/mars) : Le cas Moya, l'exposition, Galerie Lympia (Espace Culturel Départemental, Conseil Départemental 06), Nice
• 2018 (avril) : Dolly mon amour, Palazzo Saluzzo Paesana, Turin (Italie)
• 2019 (mars) : Moya Royal Transmedia, Reggia di Caserta, Caserta (Italie)
• 2020 (juin-novembre) : La Collection Moya, musée Masséna, Nice (France)
• 2020/2021 : (28 novembre 2020 / 4 décembre 2021), La Télé de Moya, centre d'art L’Artistique, Nice.

MOYA works in a "tree structure", working between real work and virtual worlds, in an invasive and immersive approach that takes its name and image as a pretext. With the goal of becoming a "creature who lives in his work". A goal achieved in 2007, through his avatar, when he moved to Second Life, where he reconstructed his artistic universe in the form of 3D pixels, becoming one of the first “metaverse artists”. Moya's maxim has been "to please everybody while remaining avant-garde; to be everywhere without wasting oneself; to touch each medium while staying perfectly recognizable".[24] He credits his time as a nude model for his healthy degree of exhibitionism and narcissism that gets duplicated as his cartoon alter ego. The result is art that crosses generations and genders. His work is often described as positive and jubilant.

Moya has participated in projects to benefit AIDS in Monaco, and UNICEF.

• Official site
• Catalogue raisonné
• YouTube channel