ALEX MOORE
ALEX MOORE
Alex Moore is a New York City based artist whose work centers on Polaroid and film photography. His journey into photography began in 2016 when he picked up his first Polaroid camera while studying abroad in Paris. Since then, Alex has expanded his repertoire to include 35mm and 120mm formats, shooting campaigns around the world and earning features in numerous magazines and articles. His work has been showcased in solo and group exhibitions in New York and across the Hamptons, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Paris and Aspen. Recently, he published his seventh photography book, BODYSCAPES, which explores the connection between human form and mother nature.
WORKS ON DISPLAY
Could you share some insights into your recent body of work?
"Spiritual America" marks Alex Moore's second solo exhibition with Aspen Collective, expanding his ongoing exploration of the imagery that defines the American landscape. Working exclusively with original Polaroid photographs, Moore constructs large-scale mosaics in which each instant photograph functions as an individual fragment, combining to form iconic scenes that feel both familiar and deeply personal.
Created from thousands of Polaroids taken around the world, the exhibition chronicles distinct pillars of American culture. Cowboys and Cowgirls—photographed during Moore's Aspen residency in the fall of 2025—stand alongside California surfers, Aspen ski scenes, and quiet roadside gas stations. Each composition is built from photographs taken within the landscapes they ultimately depict, embedding the places themselves into every image and creating works that exist simultaneously as documentary records and symbolic portraits.
The title Spiritual America speaks not to a singular definition of the nation, but to its mythology: the enduring symbols, rituals, and landscapes that continue to shape its cultural identity. Moore is drawn to subjects that have transcended geography to become universal icons, revealing the shared visual language through which America is recognized around the world.
In an increasingly digital age, the Polaroid remains central to Moore's practice for its authenticity and tactile permanence. Every photograph is an unrepeatable original, allowing each mosaic to preserve not only an image, but the physical trace of the journey that created it.
What sources of inspiration drive your art?
My work is driven by nostalgia, loss, and the tension between permanence and impermanence. I’m inspired by the rawness of the Polaroid medium and by artists like Richard Prince, Chuck Close, and David Hockney—each of whom manipulate imagery in powerful, conceptual ways. I’m also deeply inspired by my own life experience—especially the loss of my mother at a young age, which led me to see photography as a way of preserving emotional time capsules.
Could you tell us the title of your show and the story behind it?
The show is called Outlaws. It speaks to the fading idea of the cowboy—once an American icon, now something more myth than man. But it also nods to the act of creating art in a digital era using an analog medium. Polaroid is unpredictable, raw, and physical. In a way, it’s rebellious. This work is about capturing that sense of being out of step with the current world—and finding beauty in that resistance.
Do you have a favorite piece in the show? If so, what makes it stand out to you?
There’s one piece—a large-scale mosaic where the figure of the cowboy is barely held together by the surrounding polaroids. It’s both chaotic and delicate. I love it because it’s on the edge of falling apart, which feels true to the subject. That sense of tension—between control and entropy —is what I chase in all my work.
What emotions surface most frequently for you during the creative process?
Nostalgia, definitely. But also curiosity, frustration, and joy. Polaroid teaches you to let go—you never really know what you’re going to get, and there’s beauty in that unpredictability. The process feels like a conversation with time, where memory and moment are always shifting.