Michael Moffett (artist)

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Michael Moffett is an American shock artist and hyper-realistic sculptor who grew up in New York City and Sarasota, Florida, and has spent much of his career in Cocoa Beach. He is best known for the two-part, life-sized Portable War Memorial: a homeless veteran in a wheelchair looking at a second sculpture of a man’s torso mounted on a tiny military tank with a gun to its head. The piece addresses PTSD and veteran suicide. Many of his bronze sculptures blend human figures with industrial machines, and he creates body casts from resin and silicone.

Moffett served as a Marine radio operator along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Vietnam in 1969, an experience that flavors his work. He studied Fine Arts at Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota and at Palomar College in California, later working as a welder. Around 1979 he began casting with polyester resins, epoxies, and silicone rubber. His hyper-realistic sculpture is often compared to Duane Hanson and John De Andrea. He also paints pieces with social commentary and satirical advertising slogans.

He taught sculpture at Maitland Art Center in Maitland, Florida, from 2018 to 2022. After being commissioned to create a bronze drinking fountain for Cocoa, he produced Fountainhead, a sculpture with oversized feet, dangling hands and breasts, and a water spout emerging from vampire-fang lips. The mayor initially banned the piece, and it is now touring.

Exhibitions and honors include Clio Art Fair in Manhattan (2019), A Soldier’s Home Show at the Maitland Art Center (2018), Orange, Fresh Squeezed Florida Artist in the Big Apple at The Bishop Gallery (Brooklyn, 2017), Best in Show for Fountainhead at the Orlando Museum of Art (2013), Best in Sculpture at Disney Festival of Masters for The Altar (1979), and Best in Show No. 1 at the Sarasota Art Association (now Art Center Sarasota) in 1970.