Walk n' Talk

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.