MATTHEW KING
PAINTINGS FROM THE 1970’S
GRIN SEPTEMBER 3RD - OCTOBER 10TH 2015 60 VALLEY ST #3 PROVIDENCE RI
MATTHEW KING Based in Boston, Matthew King confronts the aesthetic and thematic boundaries developed by the Minimalists during the 1960s and 1970s. His works employ techniques specific to hard-edge painting and photo collage, taking the form of three-dimensional objects that defy easy categorization. King earned a BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2010 and was the recipient of the Edward Movitz painting award. His work has been included in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States including Boston, New York, Providence, and Austin, Texas. matthewkingstudio.com
GRIN GRIN is a contemporary art gallery located at The Plant in the historic Olneyville District of Providence, Rhode Island. Directed by Corey Oberlander and Lindsey Stapleton, GRIN was founded in 2013 as a space for artists to develop and exhibit their work with a steady curatorial hand. Our intent is to develop an intellectually demanding yet aesthetically pleasing program, focusing on emerging artists working across mediums. Our hope is to stimulate fresh dialogue while continuing to promote the development of the local creative community. Our mission is to support the careers of underexposed artists with a devotion to craft and conceptual advancement.
CONTACT 60 Valley Street, Unit 3, Providence, Rhode Island 02909 e. contact@grinprovidence.com p. 401 272 0796 Open Saturdays 12PM - 5PM by announcement, appointment and chance.
MATTHEW KING PAINTINGS FROM THE 1970’S In his solo-exhibition, Paintings from the 1970's, Matthew King presents a range of shaped-panels heavily masked with weighted geometrics and found iconic imagery. Stemming from a structured internal system, the artist paints dizzying patterns in high-contrast color palettes. Following post-painterly abstraction without fully rejecting expression, King's mark-making, layer-based textures, and utilization of found image allude to the labor of both the artist and his predecessors. Referencing the minimalist powerhouses of art history with an aesthetic blend of Donald Judd and Frank Stella in his larger paintings-cum-sculptures, King also nods to the collage artists of the era by incorporating appropriated images of American perma-nostalgia; Goodyear, Evil Knievel, and the Great American Road Trip in sequenced smaller works. These pieces, mounted on aluminum panel, incorporate a pop-culture angle reminiscent of the painterly collages of Ray Johnson or Robert Rauschenberg. Painting's from the 1970's alludes to contemporary culture's fetishization of nostalgic American aesthetics, much of which stems from imagery and the experience of that era. Alongside this considered visceral nostalgia, King presents aggressive disruption. The artist carefully selects each magazine page and purposefully strips the "eureka" moment by cleverly cropping the images into an often mundane alternate view. The magazine clippings are engulfed in bold or vibrant color fields, shapes, stripes, and forms. Popping off the common compliment of black or white, a sense of dated youthfulness is introduced through the simplified symbolism in saturated Kodachrome-esque colors, defining the collective visual memory of the time. Starting from a basic square, or a triangle, and most often a set of intersecting lines, King offers the viewer a variety of complex perspectives through a comprehensible approach to mark-making. Lakes of Pontchartrain is a life-sized painting constructed with wood panel completely veneered by thick layers of acrylic paint and lacquer. The formed cuts of the innermost and outermost edges combine with the painted surface to appear as two skewed crosses stacked and grooved like beta-age Tetris blocks. With fully covered surfaces, this new series seeks to eradicate the raw materiality of his previous collection, forcing the artist to develop a new process for his vibrant panels. Completed over the summer of 2015 and steeped in art history, the work in Paintings from the 1970's is both present and past.
Santa Fe III 36 x 48 x 3 in Acrylic and Lacquer on Plywood 2015
Santa Fe II 36 X 48 X 3 in Acrylic and Lacquer on Plywood 2015
Lakes of Pontchartrain II 37 x 48 x 3 in Acrylic and Lacquer on Birch 2015
2015.2.61 9 x 12 in Acrylic, Lacquer, Cut Paper on Aluminum 2015
Lakes of Pontchartrain I 48 x 60 x 3 in Acrylic and Lacquer on Birch 2015
A CONVERSATION WITH MATTHEW KING AND HEATHER LEIGH MCPHERSON
SHAMUS CLISSET
Heather Leigh Mcpherson- The title of this exhibition, Paintings from the 1970s, suggests that your work is visiting us from the past. Is art a form of time travel? Why the 1970s? Matthew King- It’s safe to say that most aspects of contemporary culture, especially consumer culture, are heavily wrapped up in a fetishization of the past. At times it becomes almost apocalyptic- like there’s no present, and no future. The current state of painting is no different, although it's not such a bad thing. I think painting is actually in a good place right now. It seems like people are starting to think about it againespecially abstract painting. The best painters right now are the ones who have an awareness of painting as a tradition, and a philosophy. They don’t get wrapped up in trying to find the “next big thing”, or some brand new way to make a painting that they think is going to save the world. It seems like formally considered painting hit a pinnacle in the 70s, and then started the race to the bottom. HLM- Your paintings instantly conjure Frank Stella’s stripes, John McCracken’s leaning slabs, and Al Held’s alphabet paintings, among many other art historical referents. Do you invoke these artists in homage? In commentary? How do you position yourself vis-à-vis art history?
MK- Painting in particular has always referenced itself. The current dialogue of painting and art making in general is so fractured that it really boils down to what ideas you are interested in. Is it a homage or commentary? I suppose on some level it is. But I liken it to the Rolling Stones playing the blues, or to Dylan playing traditional folk songs. HLM- You tend to work in series. In each one, you seem to perform an exhaustive exploration of one visual idea, like you’re setting two or three rules and then seeing all the different things you can make while following those rules. What about iteration compels you? What are the other defining elements of your working process? MK- The repetition is importantespecially in the smaller aluminum works. It’s like Cezanne painting Mont Sainte Victoire over and over. You develop an attachment to one idea, or one equation, and making multiples is a way of figuring it out. You have to make 100 drawings before you make your first one. In the larger works, the building and the labor are important. If these things aren’t made by my own two hands then what’s the point? I take pride in craftsmanship- the entire process from start to finish is part of the act of painting whether or not actual paint is involved.
Nowadays you can go to the store and buy a pre-made canvas, or you can pay someone else to make the arbitrary rectangle for you. That’s not enough. There’s no consideration. HLM- I’m interested in the physical materials you use and appropriate, from found photographs and advertisements to industrial oriented strand board. Many of your paintings strategically reveal the product information printed on the OSB, acknowledging the painting support as an active compositional participant. Your collages seem to begin with the found image, which becomes a given for the ensuing painting. Do you always take up an existing image or material as the seed for an artwork? Is appropriation a conceptual approach for you or more of a procedural stimulant? MK- I pay close attention to the content in the materials I work with, but I’m weary of having a strictly “conceptual” approach to making anything. I’m involved in the concept of making abstract paintings- which at times seems ridiculous in its own right. I appropriate images and materials that have overarching themes and connections. Obviously there are certain aesthetics and subjects that I’m drawn to more than others. I think there's a power to that- and a personality to it as well. There’s no intended message in these things. I’m not interested in working in some kind of preordained conceptual path- like the type of work that needs an artist statement tacked up on the wall next to it. HLM- These paintings are pictures
and objects at once, and they seem to ping-pong between speaking to the eye and speaking to the body. Their saturated color, high contrast, and disrupted patterning offer up a buffet of delicious optical action, but their compositional tricks often register in the body-- the calculated pairing of a parallelogram-shaped panel with a 20-degree stripe pattern, for example, can make a viewer feel as though her body’s listing left or right, or that the floor she stands on is out of true. That the panels lean against the wall, entering the space of the viewer, intensifies their bodily quality. Is that eye/body or picture/object dynamic a source of tension? Of energy? Is there a specific experience you’d like for viewers to have as they stand among these things? MK- I think of paintings as physical things that occupy and take up space- objects with true spatial presence. The wall becomes the crucial element though- the defining element to painting. Whether they lean on the wall, hang on the wall or sit in front of the wall- they are all paintings. The wall creates a kind of demilitarized zone between the thing and the viewer. It’s interesting. You could nail a chair to the wall and it will demand the consideration that only a painting can. I’m interested in that space- placing an object in the room, like a chair or a piece of furniture, but maintaining a dictative control on perspective.
2015.2.60 9 x 12 in Acrylic, Lacquer, Cut Paper on Aluminum 2015
2015.2.66 11 3/4 x 11 3/4 in Acrylic, Lacquer, Cut Paper on Aluminum 2015
2015.2.68 11 3/4 x 11 3/4 in Acrylic, Lacquer, Cut Paper on Aluminum 2015
2015.2.67 11 3/4 x 11 3/4 in Acrylic, Lacquer, Cut Paper on Aluminum 2015
2015.2.69 11 3/4 x 11 3/4 in Acrylic, Lacquer, Cut Paper on Aluminum 2015
Lakes of Pontchartrain III 32 x 60 x 3 in Acrylic and Lacquer on Birch 2015
Santa Fe IV 36 x 48 x 3 in Acrylic and Lacquer on Plywood 2015
Santa Fe I 50 x 52 x 2 in Acrylic and Lacquer on Birch 2015