BIO
Moira Bateman is an American artist born in 1965 in Minneapolis, where she continues to live and work. Working across textile, mixed media, and large-scale installation, she is best known for works made in direct collaboration with natural ecosystems: migrations of organic peace silk through rivers, bogs, and sea that allow water, sediment, tide, and fermented mineral mud dye rooted in ancient Norse tradition to inscribe themselves into the cloth over months and years. The resulting works carry the chemical and physical signatures of specific ecosystems; not as depictions of place, but as material evidence of having been there.
Bateman's practice proceeds from a lifelong ecocentric conviction that the living world holds inherent value and agency independent of human perception. Water, sediment, and weather are not metaphors in her work; they are co-authors. Her major bodies of work include Bog Etudes (2023), a six-panel immersive installation of bog-dyed silk at monumental scale; Sund (Notes From the Sea) (2025), which brings together mud cloth works and Seadrift pieces made from sea-weathered fisheries plastic recovered in Hardangerfjord, Norway; and By Way of Water (2019), a solo installation presented at the Bowery Gallery in New York. Her processes unfold at ecological and seasonal timescales, submitting to natural forces rather than the pace of human making. Cloth, in her work, becomes a form of memory: porous, accumulative, and changed by what it has passed through.
Bateman holds a Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of Minnesota, and her early work in native plant community reclamation informs her ongoing attention to ecosystems as complex, interdependent systems. She is a recipient of the McKnight Foundation Fiber Artist Fellowship (2022), the Minnesota State Arts Board Visual Artists Initiative Grant (2014), and the Jerome Foundation Textile Fiber Artist Project Grant (2013). Residencies include Art Omi (Ghent, NY, 2024) and Kunstnarhuset Messen (Ålvik, Norway, 2024). Exhibitions have been held at Form+Content Gallery, Minneapolis (2025, 2023); Textile Center, Minneapolis (2023); Bowery Gallery, New York (2019); and Minnesota Marine Art Museum, Winona (2016), among others. Her work is currently held and has been exhibited internationally at Galleri Semmingsen, Oslo, Norway, and has been shown at The Integral Museum of Akademgorodok, Siberia.
CV
Born in 1965 in Minneapolis MN, United States
Resides and works in Minneapolis MN, United States
EDUCATION
1995-1997 Master of Landscape Architecture, University of Minnesota
SOLO AND TWO-PERSON EXHIBITIONS
Form+Content Gallery, Sund (Notes From the Sea) Solo Exhibition, Minneapolis MN 2025
Textile Center, Mary Giles Gallery The 2022 McKnight Fiber Artist Fellowship Exhibition Etudes: Watersheds, Bogs, Kayaks Solo Exhibition, Minneapolis MN 2023
Form+Content Gallery Bog Etudes Solo Exhibition, Minneapolis MN 2023
Bowery Gallery By Way of Water Solo Exhibition, New York, NY 2019
North Hennepin Community College Making Alice Solo Exhibition, Brooklyn Park MN 2018
McKnight Foundation Lobby Gallery The Hand of the River Two-person Exhibition, Minneapolis MN 2016-2017
Minnesota Marine Art Museum The Hand of the River Two-person Exhibition, Winona MN 2016
Phipps Center for the Arts Memorarae: Medial in Nature Solo Exhibition, Hudson Wisconsin 2015
University of Minnesota's College of Design Elements in Material Solo Exhibition, Minneapolis MN 2015
Transient Gallery Trace/Retrace Solo Exhibition, Des Moines IA 2014
Flow Art Space momenta animale Solo Exhibition, St. Paul MN 2013
SELECT GROUP EXHIBITIONS
Galleri Semminsen, Oslo Norway, 2025
Science Museum of Minnesota, Pine Needles, St. Paul MN 2025
Dreamsong Art Groundwork, Minneapolis MN 2023
FOMA and ecoartspace, Some Kind of Nature with Juror Dominque Mazeaud, Santa Fe NM 2023
DeVos Art Museum North of the 45th with Juror Michael Andrews, Marquette MI 2023
108/Contemorary Safekeeping, Surface Design Association Group Exhibition with Juror, Anita Fields, Tulsa OK 2023
Minnesota Museum of American Art Many Waters Juried Biennial, St Paul MN 2023
The Integral Museum of Akademgorodok Sustainable Acts Virtual Exhibition and Artist Talk, Novosibirsk Siberia 2021
Science Museum of Minnesota St. Croix Watershed Research Station Residency Exhibition St Paul MN 2021
Grand Marais Art Colony But it Was Still There Water Cycle Residency Exhibition (Four-Person), Grand Marais MN 2021
Public Functionary Wintertide NEMAA Juried Group Exhibition, Minneapolis MN 2019
University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment Sustainable Acts Small Group Invitational Exhibition, St Paul MN 2015
Minneapolis St. Paul Airport Renewal Small Group Invitational, Bloomington MN 2014
Textile Center Joan Mondale Gallery Jerome Foundation Grant Recipient Exhibition (Four-Person), Minneapolis MN 2013
Instinct Gallery Remnants and Curiosities Small Group Invitational, Minneapolis MN 2013
ARTIST RESIDENCIES
Art Omi: Artists (Ghent, NY 2024)
KH Messen (Ålvik, Norway 2024)
Grand Marais Art Colony Water Cycle Invitational (Grand Marais, MN 2019)
North Hennepin Community College Theater Department Scenic Design (Brooklyn Park, MN 2018)
St. Croix Watershed Research Station Pine Needles (Marine on St. Croix, MN 2018)
AWARDS
McKnight Foundation Fiber Artist Fellowship (2022)
Minnesota State Arts Board Visual Artists Initiative Grant (2014)
Jerome Foundation Textile Fiber Artist Project Grant (2013)
PUBLIC ART
North Hennepin Community College Transform Fine Arts Building Public Mural, Brooklyn Park MN 2020
Minnesota Landscape Arboretum Field to Table Landscape Sculpture Installation 2010