Matt's Studio Apparatus

Blog Dead

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Mon, 06 Jan 2014 22:29:00 +0000

I didn't get the movie deal or the book deal. Alas.
I can still be Twittered and Instagrammed.
Representation through Project4 in Washington, DC.
Your Pal,
Matthew

Reviews You Can Use

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Fri, 31 May 2013 18:22:00 +0000

Here's a rundown of reviews for the Salon of Little Deaths at Hamiltonian Gallery:

Washington City Paper
Examiner.com
JW Smith - wrote a think piece for Hamiltonian's website.
What Weekly
I review-bombed Victoria Fu's CityPaper review as well as her Centerfold Artist podcast. AND you should see her show at Flashpoint because it is spellbinding. You'll think a lot about pictorial language, language of film, language of images...I could go on but won't. Just see it for yourself.

Mini-sode

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Thu, 23 May 2013 14:49:00 +0000

The Salon of Little Deaths is going strong. Above is an action shot of the show provided by Jerry Truong. There are more action shots if you follow the link. In case you missed the talk on May 14th, you may view it here.

There is a strange cowboy painting ready for the Bridgette Mayer show. The humidity is presenting a lot of varnish problems for it, so that should be interesting. I'll post an image of it soon-ish.

Also this drawing is headed up north to the Painting Center for a show called "Working It Out". The opening is on Thursday, June 20, 2013.

Speeeed Metal Updatz

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 18:58:00 +0000

Many things to report, dear Internet. We have to go fast...

1. I am Mr. April over at Trop Magazine's Centerfold Artist. I bear my soul through a questionnaire while Zack and Annette (your tropcast hosts) crack wise about my answers like a couple of wiseacres.

2. I contributed a vessel to the Alchemical Vessels show/fundraiser at Joan Hisaoka Gallery. Reception on Friday, April 26th. If you purchase a ticket to the fundraiser, you get to walk off with a bowl of your choosing after the show closes. Simple as that.

3. I am part of the FLEX show at the Flats at Atlas organized and curated by Mike Iacavone, Billy Friebele, Jonathan Monaghan, and Calder Brannock. The reception is April 27th from 7-10pm.

4. I am finishing up work for the Salon of Little Deaths show at Hamiltonian from May 11-June 15. Press releases and printed matter forthcoming.

5. I am making a small work for an upcoming benefit show at Bridgette Mayer Gallery in Philly with sales benefiting a totally worthy organization called Ready, Willing, and Able. The reception is on July 12th.

5a. This benefit show immediately follows my pal Mark Brosseau's show at that selfsame gallery.

My Bad

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 18:28:00 +0000

I just wanted to let you know that despite the MPA: Small Stories show having closed over the weekend, here's the review in case you missed it) the Obstructions show is still up at AU's Katzen Art Center until the 17th.

I mistakenly thought that it closed on March 2nd. Which was last Saturday. Which was a mistake. Which is now corrected.

Volver de Jorge or something like that

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 17:56:00 +0000

Just wanted to tip you off to a review by Mark Jenkins of the Washington Post of the show at McLean Project for the Arts. It is up for another couple of weeks incidentally. In this review you will find a singling out of yours truly, and special attention paid to my "magnum opus" (reviewer's words not mine) the Passion of St. George (pictured above).

M'kay, well I spent last week stretching and priming canvases, and started one new painting. I did a bunch of drawing as well in preparation for the final push until May's show at Hamiltonian. There will be a sort of members only sort of sneak preview/studio visit in late April through Hamiltonain too. I'll let you know more about that as it develops.

Journaling and Acne Moutnain

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 16:11:00 +0000

I am in the studio painting these landscapes that I made up. They collectively describe a terrain around a mountain made of drapery not surprisingly called Drapery Mountain. The function of a mountain made of drapery comes from looking at a Domenico Veneziano painting and deciding that the mountains look like drapery. Or at least the way that drapery was more or less represented at that time. Plus that was apparently a technique of people like Giovanni Di Paolo (and presumably Domenico Veneziano) where he would -according to Kenneth Clark- bring rocks into the studio to serve as models for mountains. I always wondered how G di P's mountains ended up looking like pimples rising from a gridded field. This is how I guess. But don't worry. I am not going to make any paintings featuring "pimple mountain". That would be...um...well I am a little nauseous thinking about it.

This is the general topography, or topology, or "topocosm" since it is the more lovely word, of the paintings right now. There are a lot of pieces and parts going into the work. In addition to mountains of leaves and drapery, I am now putting these "parks" into the landscapes where the walkways are designed after Persian tiles. I am also working hard right now at jamming the construction and readability of that conventional Claude/Poussin landscape mode to represent a sensation of looking at images, and having more than one perceptual experience at once. I just finished a painting like that yesterday. It is really strange. Bear with me on that one.

Walk n' Talk

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 17:27:00 +0000

Here is the interview I recorded with Joshua Wade Smith regarding his very excellent show at Hamiltonian Gallery titled Here Nor There.

En Serio 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 22:10:00 +0000

Happy 2013! I hope you are enjoying it so far. I have been sick/getting the studio ready for painting en serio. I have been doing quite a bit of drawing lately too which is always refreshing. As refreshing as mint body wash, but I have already said too much.

My work for the McLean Project for the Arts Small Stories exhibition have been dropped off and are currently being installed. There is a reception next Thursday, January 17th from 7-9pm. Be there.

And/Or...

From January 26-March 17th, I am in a group show at the Katzen Art Center at American University as part of their winter 2013 season. The show is called The Obstructions and the press release (pictured above) explains why. Reception is Saturday January 26th, 6-9pm. There is also a gallery talk Saturday February 9th at 4pm.

P.S. If you haven't seen the Jorgen Leth films that inspired the Obstructions project, you should. Well, you'll at least feel like you accomplished something after watching them. Like seeing Jandek perform. Or watching any of those later Chris Marker films. You know what I'm talking about, right?

Anyway, steady as she goes.

Narratography

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 17:00:00 +0000

I just launched a new website. It is here. There will be some changes made to it, but you'll get the idea.

Transformer Auction is this Friday. If you don't have a ticket, but want one, go here. I will see you there. If you can't make it, here is a pdf of the catalog. Death Banquet is my contribution, and if I may, it is a better painting than I remembered.

In other news I completed an "Avian" painting of a "Supinated Finch" shown above. It is sort of a pun based on a line from Lyotard (you are impressed I can tell) where he says that one must effectively "supine" themselves to an experience to get to the unmediated essence of it.

Currently, I am at work on a painting for the Fellows Converge: Obstructions show at the Katzen Center here in DC at the end of January. This is sort of phase two of the show that we had at the Hamiltonian Gallery this past summer. You may remember this painting. Anyway, I have a small painting going for the show in accord with the limitations provided by my co-fellows, but I am planning to start another later this week. I will pick the nicest for the show. One is set at night. One is set during the day. One is bigger than the other. Which will win? Find out January 26th. Add that to your calendar.

Otherwise I am gearing up for a nice long studio winter with some big, and less big, canvases starting after my return from Scope Miami. I will likely reemerge in May.

Rawktober Recap

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 13:42:00 +0000

We are almost through October, and I am down to the wire. Let's recap:

(e)merge was fine/exhausting. I had to help deinstall another show uptown the same night, so that was a bit harrowing. Did I mention that it was raining that day?

Conventional Wisdom at Delicious Spectacle show was super fun. There is a closing reception on November 1 at 7pm if you are interested. Follow the link.

I was not victorious at Kitchen of Innovation, however, it was a great night. I said my piece and had a cool slide show if I do say so myself.

Now I am in the final throws of assembling a talk at MICA, which brings us up to the exact end of the month. On Halloween.

All the while I have been chopping away at a new website. I have only a couple of things to work out before it goes live. Perhaps next week. Maybe.

I also completed three painting, and started a fourth in October. I have no idea how that happened. They are small paintings, but still. Night on Drapery Mountain (pictured above) is one of them. Well, it is mostly finished. I have one more element to include. Also in the picture you see a little sliver of Back View of Drapery Mountain from Foliage Mountain.

Oh, man! I almost forgot that there are two new acquisitions into my collection. Perhaps I will brag about that another time.

News Ewe Can Yuze four October

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 17:37:00 +0000

Dear The Internet,

October is shaping up to be a very busy month. I know that saying that you are "busy" is an annoying humble-brag, but in this case, in this month, it is utterly true. Not to sound like I am complaining, which it probably does, but the non-studio stuff relates to exhibiting work, which is also part of the purpose of making it. For me anyway. Sorry for all of the comma splicing, but I have had a lot of coffee.

So here is the news in chronological order.

At (e)merge, October 4th -7th, you will see some new paintings. Four or five to be exact. Some having to do with a new series of landscapes that I have been making generally referred to, by me, as "Views of Drapery Mountain".

Then a week later on the 12th, a handful of those Drapery Mountain paintings will again be on view at Delicious Spectacle in a group show called Conventional Wisdom. For those who don't know, Delicious Spectacle is an alternative space that has recently emerged to a good amount of acclaim. Their two previous shows have been awesome, so I am excited to have been asked to participate.

Then on the 18th, I am at Hamiltonian with one work donated to their benefit Call Collect. I contributed a good drawing that ultimately became a good painting. Ticketing info is above.

After that I am giving a talk/pitch at Kitchen of Innovation (KOI) on the evening of the 20th. This is a project driven, micro-grant event. Therefore I have to speak convincingly and somewhat entertainingly about a project that has long been steeping in my mind. I don't think that the list of participants has actually been released yet, so I will keep it under my hat. Anyway, there will be food and drink as part of the cost of admission.

Then finally on Halloween, I am giving a talk at MICA to their painting students. Not to overuse the term "excited", but I am excited because I like talking to the kids. They usually politely laugh at my jokes. Hopefully they come out instead of putting the finishes on their costumes.

So, that is October. Please come out to one, or all, of these events to see the new work, say "hi", have a cocktail, or just stand there awkwardly. I plan on doing all three.

Your Pal,
Matthew

A Grip of Paintings

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 20:37:00 +0000

Here are some hastily photographed new paintings I had to take mainly for documentation reasons. Anyhow the image above is View of Drapery Mountain (Longing). All painting here are oil on canvas, 16x20 inches (or 20x16 depending) and completed in the year of our Lord two thousand and twelve.

This 'un here is View onto Drapery Mountain.

And you remember this one, correct? It is Eruption at Drapery Mountain. In this raking light you can see how the paint piles up because I didn't take the time to prepare the canvas well, resulting in a three week fight for dominance over the painting. I won eventually. Just to spite it I painted that dead tree on the left.

Conceptually things here are getting more and more circuitous. As things often are I suppose. Lots of reassigning matter, and how that bares on meaning, that is, intelligibility, and aesthetic ideas of representation and landscape.

For the bibliophiles out there I am reading: Klaus Ottmann's Genius Decision. Highly recommended.

Mountain Majesties

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 21:46:00 +0000

Here is an image of the Eruption at Drapery Mountain painting when it was almost completed. It is now totally completed and I have started two other "Drapery Mountain" related paintings. It just started happening that way. I am thinking a lot about the Hiroshige series, rather than the Hokusai series. (No disrespect, obvs) Not sure I'll make it to 36 views of Drapery Mountain, but we shall see.

As usual I was running out the door when I snapped this image, so you get some nice motion-y blurriness.

In other news I am building a new website and working on paintings. That is all. Updates on all of this to follow.

Bird Flu

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 14:00:00 +0000

Oh! and here is the Apologist painting. Oil on canvas, 50"x60".

The View

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 19:25:00 +0000

Here is the recently finished View From Drapery Mountain. 60"x50" of oil on canvas fury. Feel free to make a side by side comparison with the image below.

Redactions

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 15:19:00 +0000

Thankfully the kind people at Hamiltonian took images of the small series of paintings I made earlier this summer generally referred to, by me, as "Redactions". They were impossibly fun to make and a great way to get out of a rut. You can see the rest of them here.

The series consisted of overpaintings on National Gallery reproductions. Overall it was an exercise in thinking my way out of a corner. It was also a project to unmake, or deface, master paintings and sort of ties in to these very Walter Benjamin-esque thoughts that I have been having lately.

The "Redaction" that is pictured is the "Study for 'View From Drapery Mountain'" which was completed early this week. It is over Francois Boucher's Allegory of Painting. This is an important fact.

End the Beginning

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 18:57:00 +0000

Here is a recent start for a probable "Eruption at Drapery Mountain". Clearly there was a lot of leftover green in the studio, in addition to wanting a green and salmon sky. I am going for something a little more barren, or volcanic, rather than lush, so that green in the foreground will probably go. I am reasonable happy with it so far except for my impatience preparing the surface. It just drinks paint. Soon though it'll be drinking hot lava.

This is a down and dirty image of the recently completed View From Drapery Mountain painting. It is an odd painting, which is about all I'll say about it for the moment. Other than it is modestly scaled at 60x50 inches.

Also, the Fall/Winter 2012, and Spring 2013 schedule is starting to take shape. Stay tuned for that as things become finalized.

In Action

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 23:48:00 +0000

Here is a montage-y view of a recent studio visit with the Hamiltonian folks courtesy of...wait for it...the Hamiltonian folks. 'Twas a good visit and the coffee was a good, strong brew. Sidamo supplied it with the assistance of my debit card.

Hey man, it's Summer

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 22:49:00 +0000

I am reading John Ruskin's (pictured) chapter in Modern Painters called "Of Cloud Beauty". Is that not the most beautiful title? (A close second would be the title of David Mitchell's book Cloud Atlas, which I am also currently reading. It isn't about clouds.) In "Of Cloud Beauty" Ruskin is waxing on about clouds and their substance, musing about how they stay aloft, their shapes and how he doesn't know why they are that shape, but he is sure that the wind isn't responsible. The field of modern meteorology must have only been taking shape as of his writing. It is an entertaining read none the less. That is, if you are a hopeless dork.

Otherwise, it occurred to me this morning that I have been painting trees for the last couple of weeks. It is only a little tiresome. I'll pull through. During this time too I had forgotten how horrible the sky was in the "drapery mountain" painting. I will have to fix that before I go to the beach. Where I will no doubt be studying clouds and reading Ruskin.

Painting -N- Progress

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 15:51:00 +0000

I started this late last week. In any case, this is the basic setup. It is View From Drapery Mountain for which you may have spied the study during the Call + Response show. Now that I think of it that pheasant still doesn't have a title.

In other news this Wednesday there is a talk that I am participating in for the Obstructions show currently at Hamiltonian. Starts at 7pm of course, and moderated by The Tim Doud.

Autobots...Obstruct!

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 22:54:00 +0000

Hi. I have a painting in this show at Hamiltonian. What's thatcha say? You thought I was in the last show at Hamiltonian?! Why yes, this is true, but I am in this one too. One small painting, oil on reproduction on panel, which seems to be my M.O. this summer. The painting is sort of a study for some ideas that I have been kicking around wedged into this trio of "obstructions" that are beautifully explained here by Tim Doud, the curator of the show. Come see it on Saturday the 23rd at 7pm. Then every day afterward until August 11.

Oh! and the title of the painting is Life Boat (Ballad of the Meat Canoe). Uh...yeah...it just came to me.

Pheasant-tastic

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Tue, 29 May 2012 21:51:00 +0000

Here is an image of the pheasant painting that I completed this morning. No title or anything yet. The only facts that I can provide are it's measurements (50"x60"), its media (oil on canvas), and its date of completion (today). Another fun fact is that I really struggled with how to finish it. And now it is as finished as anything ever is.

In other new the Call and Response work was dropped off yesterday and is probably already installed. I am sure that I pestered you (you too you Russian internet surfing robots) about the opening this Saturday. The show is only up for a couple of weeks, so come by the opening to say hi and have a drink. Then come back and dig into the work. OR! Come to the gallery at 6pm to witness the panel discussion. There is a lot to process with this show overall. I can already tell.

Redacted

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Sat, 19 May 2012 14:05:00 +0000

Finished! Mostly. I think. I am still tinkering with the configuration, but this is my offering to Call + Response. Come and see them in the paint (and the ink) on June 2. Uh...what else...they are oil on reproduction on panel.

Now onto trying to finish that pheasant, then a couple of other things for the Fellows Converge show at Hamiltonian in late June. Somewhere in there I am going to sneak out of DC for a brief vacation.

Pants on Fire

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Sat, 05 May 2012 14:57:00 +0000

Here is a another small glimpse of my contribution (here is the first) to the Call + Response show in June. I am very close to finished, but am having some difficulty imagining how I am going to display them; neither orientation to one another or mounting/framing etc. They are oil on reproduction which is a completely enjoyable left turn, and sort of in keeping with the spirit of Reb Livingston's writing.

Incidentally, there will be a panel discussion/talk before the reception on June 2nd at 6pm.