Daina Mattis - "Vessels" exhibition catalog

DAINA MATTIS VESSELS

ALI MILLER INSATIABLE

DAINA MATTIS Vessels

How Might That Be Contained

by Tom McGlynn Artists have been putting new wine in old bottles (and old wine in new) fairly indiscriminately for centuries. So the idea of the post-modern “quotation” of older styles of painting and sculpture in order to fill, ironically, a post-historical container with contemporary meaning is nothing new. Epochal quotation and aesthetic ellipsis contain the constant leakage of the new in order to make such innovation both potable and portable: both inherently understood and transporting. Harold Bloom describes the willed re- containment of the poetic dynamic across the ages in quasi- Freudian terms as the “anxiety of influence”. Dennis Dutton reshapes the continuity of human aesthetic reaction as adaptive responses conditioned by epigenetic memory: a kind of pre-conditioning (the old bottle) for the taste of innovation (the new wine).

So that “that” which is contained has been perennially conditioned by the shape and nature of its container.

Daina Mattis’s paintings and sculptures shape the fluidity of post modern sliding signifiers via very specific containment strategies. Some of these are culturally conditioned in ways which the viewer could find familiar, such as her TV dinner tray table hybridized with a diminutive swimming pool in Lap Pool. Others, while still familiar, skirt the realm of the magic real, such as the ceiling sprinkler nozzle suspended in a Tiepolo–like sky in Fair Weather. It’s worth noting that the artist has mentioned the latter work being influenced by the simulacrum of the projected sky in the hyperbolic arcade at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. In both of these works the artist takes into consideration a certain pre-cognition of common symbols that allows easy entry into her disjunctive, perhaps even dystopic, world of artificial environments and generic formalisms. Disparate elements such as faux-marbre entablatures are interrupted with what look like color swatches from Home Depot in Test Swatch (Sanguine), for example. There is a discomforting conjunction of formal elements that don’t hold up syntactically or semantically, at least not in any classical sense of compositional/conceptual unity. These works are therefore deeply theoretical, a notion that might initially scare a large portion of beauty-seeking aesthetes away. Yet Mattis’s approach can’t really be said to be that of an anti-aesthetic. Though her jarring juxtapositions of desultory, seemingly computer generated, brush strokes, floating detached from not thoroughly convincing marbleized grounds, could be construed as cynically gestural, there is something more elusively buoyant to her self-contained compositions. This lightness of critical humor is most evident in her Soul Food (LV Pasta) series of designer–logo (Louis Vuitton) alphabet soup packets.

Mattis comes from a classically-trained background centered primarily in figure drawing. With this show, however, rather than picturing embodiment, she’s embodying “picturement”. What is meant by the latter term is that in any system of visualization there is a larger overlay of design symbolism that orders an artist’s theoretical matrix: their thinking in pictures. When one no longer defines pictures as figurative illustration but as literal visualization, then the distinctions between representational imagery and abstract picturing become fairly interchangeable forms (and theoretical terms) to play with. Think of how a sheet of plywood abstractly represents a tree in its biomorphic designs that are derived from the inherent “nature” of the tree yet are never seen in nature quite like that. The same can be said for the “abstract” cross-section imaging of an MRI machine as it scans the human body. These are examples of imaging systems that extrapolate “abstractions” from their subjects from the mere representational image that they present in their unmediated forms. Mattis interestingly, has chosen to dominate her show with a large portion of faux-marbre backgrounds which similarly slice the striations of geologic time into laterally spreading abstractions of that time. Fake marbelization of course, comes to us from a western classical source as an attenuated version of the articulation of architectural spaces with actual marble accents such as palaces and temples, but also eventually as faux-marbre decoration in more domestic settings. Many of the extant villa murals from Pompeii, for instance, attest to the attraction for such trompe l’oeil marbleized backdrops. Hence there is also a certain decadent, in the sense of the theoretically dissipated, association with the form of false marble in the present which can be perceived as a rather tacky, nouveau-riche affectation. Perhaps the most memorable creative redeployment of the decorative tradition of faux-marbre and faux-bois in painting comes from Braque and Picasso’s extensive use of such in their Synthetic Cubist paintings and constructions. Braque was, as a matter of fact, trained in fake marble and wood graining technique in his family’s business when he was young. For Braque, the decorating of petit- bourgeois, turn of the century, salons must have been a perfect jumping off point for deconstructing such middle class pretension in radically re-pictured, Cubist versions of the drawing room still life. Mattis, in revitalizing false marble technique in her paintings, similarly make reference to a previous, already dissolute, tradition, which in her case might be read as a tactical backdrop for the implied critique of the pretensions to empire of the current narrative in American politics. She creatively moderates any blatant “preaching toward the polis”, however, with a wit that delivers her potential political critique more discreetly, and therefore, more subversively.

In “The Carrier Bag of Fiction”, Ursula Le Guin writes of a radical redefining of the container of literary tradition, specifically with the novel form, but her redefinition of the terms of aesthetic engagement could just as well be applied to Daina Mattis’s approach toward the creative revisualization of painting and sculpture. To quote Le Guin: When she was planning the book that ended up as Three Guineas, Virginia Woolf wrote a heading in her notebook, “Glossary”; she had thought of reinventing English according to a new plan, in order to tell a different story. One of the entries in this glossary is heroism, defined as “botulism.” And hero, in Woolf’s dictionary, is “bottle.” The hero as bottle, a stringent reevaluation. I now propose the bottle as hero. Not just the bottle of gin or wine, but bottle in its older sense of container in general, a thing that holds something else.

It is this more portable concept of the container which must also be applied when viewing Mattis’s work here. There is no similarly received palate for the taste of the easily potable, “same old wine” (or aesthetic subject) in Mattis’s work, but perhaps an innovative way of imbibing such that demands a new theoretical bottle: a new picturement.

Tom McGlynn is an artist, writer, and independent curator. McGlynn’s own work is represented in many national and international collections including the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum of the Smithsonian. He has been a contributing writer to the Brooklyn Rail since 2012. Currently a visiting lecturer at Parsons the New School for Design, McGlynn has also taught as an Assistant Professor at Castleton State College, Vermont, and also as a visiting lecturer at the Mason Gross School of Frine Arts at Rutgers University, NJ.

Surrender, 2018, oil on linen mounted to panel, 45 x 45 inches

Lap Pool (Cobalt), 2018, fiberglass and steel, 16 x 20.5 x 25 inches

Twilight, 2018, oil on linen mounted to panel, 16 x 24 inches

Part-Time, 2018, oil on linen mounted to panel, 47 x 30 inches

Lap Pool (Teal), 2018, fiberglass and steel, 16 x 20.5 x 25 inches

Test Swatches (Wine, Sanguine, Ivory, Crimson), 2018, oil on linen mounted to panel, 15 x 12 inches each

Fair Weather, 2018, oil on linen mounted to panel, 16 x 24 inches

Soul Food, 2018, egg and flour, dimensions variable

Soul Food, 2018, egg and flour, dimensions variable

Makeshift, 2018, oil on linen mounted to panel, 54 x 60 inches

Skim, 2018, oil on linen mounted to panel, 31 x 30 inches

Blue Skies, 2018, oil on linen mounted to panel, 16 x 24 inches

View Finder (White Marble, Green Marble), 2018, oil on linen mounted to panel, 15 x 12 inches each

Daina Mattis b. Los Angeles, CA

EDUCATION 2011 - MFA, Painting - Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 2011 - Certificate in University Teaching - Syracuse University, The Graduate School 2007 - BFA, Painting and Drawing - Laguna College of Art & Design, Laguna Beach, CA, Summa Cum Laude 2007 - Sculpture Minor - Laguna College of Art & Design, Laguna Beach, CA ​ SOLO EXHIBITIONS ​ 2019 Bona Fide (2), January 21 - February 17, Azarian McCullough Art Gallery, St. Thomas Aquinas College 2018 Vessels, High Noon Gallery, October 11 - November 11, New York, NY ​ 2017 Bona Fide, Blue House Gallery, November 11 – December 9, Dayton, OH 2016 The Present Matter, SLA307 Art Space, October 21 - November 27, New York, NY 2013-2014 Foreign Bodies (2 person exhibition with Caitlin Foley), Arcade Gallery, Marymount College, December 2 January 25, San Pedro, CA 2010 Daina Mattis, Frances Keevil Art Gallery, May 18 - June 1, Double Bay, Sydney, Australia The Wall, Syracuse University, April 1 - 30, Syracuse, NY 2009 Daina Mattis, Sylvia White Gallery, July 8 -August 8, Ventura, CA

GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2019 Thisness and Whatness, Dates TBD, Felician University, Rutherford, NJ 2018 Art Vilnius International Contemporary Art Fair, June 7-10, Sla307 Art Space, Vilnius, Lithuania Faculty Display Case, Jan 29 – Feb 11, Parsons School of Design, The New School, New York, NY VNO-NYC, Dec 14, 2017 – Jan 4, Sla307 Art Space, New York, NY 2017 The Painted Desert Part II, November 16 - December 24, High Noon Gallery, New York, NY Making Marks, September 1 – October 15, The Hardy Gallery, Ephraim, WI Soft Spoken, July 22 - August 14, Sara Nightingale Gallery, Sag Harbor, NY Soft Reboot, June 3 - July 23, Proto Gallery, Curated by Rob Ventura, Hoboken, NJ Smart Dust, Dec 9 - Jan 7, SLA307 Non-Profit Art Space, New York, NY Flat File Program, Dec 2016 - Nov 2017, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Brooklyn, NY 2016 Flat File: Year 4, Dec 9 – 18, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Brooklyn, NY Išeivijos Meninik Paroda, Oct 29 - Nov 20, The Hangar Gallery South, Santa Monica, CA The Cooper Union Artist in Residency Exhibition, Aug 3 - 17, Cooper Union, New York, NY Jurors Range, June 17 - July 17, The Hardy Gallery, Ephraim, WI Introductions, Jan 15 - Feb 19, Trestle Gallery, Curated by Jim Osman, Brooklyn, NY 2015 The Rebirth of Wonder, June 5 - 7, Bushwick Open Studios 2015, Brooklyn, NY Moterys Apie Moteris, March 7 - 29, Lithuanian Museum of Art, Lemont, IL Gallery Gala 17 Invitational, Feb 13 - Aug 8, Arnot Art Museum, Elmira, NY 30th Annual Positive/Negative, Feb 1 - March 15, Slocumb Galleries, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN 2014 The Way of the Flesh Part II, Sept 18 - Oct 16, Mt. San Antonio College Art Gallery, Walnut, CA ARK, Aug 1 - Sept 28, Charles Allis Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI Art from the Boros II, June 19 - Aug 9, Denise Bibro Fine Art, New York, NY Collector’s Choice 2014, April 23 - May 24, Sylvia White Gallery, Ventura, CA Body Language, April 5 - May 17, Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Curated by George Herms, Santa Ana, CA

2013 Creatives Rising, October, Long Island City, NY Commitment and Similar Acts of Betrayal: A Contemporary Drawing Exhibit, Feb 5 March 1, Sarah Silberman Gallery, Montgomery College, MD 2012 Art in Miami-Context, Dec 4 - 9, J. Cacciola Gallery, Miami, FL The Other New York, Sept 22 - Jan 6, 2013, The Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY Things Are Not What They Seem, April 3 - 28, J. Cacciola Gallery, New York, NY Represent, April 12 - 30, Think Tank Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Re-Placed, March, Brooklyn Fire Proof, Brooklyn, NY The Figure Now, Feb 11 - 24, BAG Gallery, Brooklyn, NY 46th Annual National Drawing & Small Sculpture, Feb 14 - May 4, 2012, Del Mar College, Corpus Christi, TX 2011 On the Edge: Statements in Black & White, Nov 12 - Jan 30, 2012, S-Cube Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA 2011 Fishing From the Beach, Nov 12 - 26, Dumbo Arts Center, Brooklyn, NY De-Figuration, Lutheran Church of St. John the Evangelist, Brooklyn, NY 2011 MFA Thesis Exhibition, April 7 - May 15, SU Art Galleries, Syracuse Univ., Syracuse, NY Ekphrasis, Mod Melange Exhibition, January, Los Angeles, CA Kentucky National, Juried Exhibition, Feb 18 - March 13, Clara M. Eagle Gallery, Murray State University, Murray, KY 2010 Syracuse University Faculty Exhibition, XL Space, Syracuse, NY Means of Connection, Lutheran Church of St. John the Evangelist, Brooklyn, NY Meet & Greet, Spark Gallery, Syracuse, NY Mod Melange Exhibition, July, Los Angeles, CA Mod Melange Exhibition, April, Factory Brooklyn, Brooklyn, NY Matrilineage Exhibition, Spark Gallery, Syracuse, NY Selected Works, Feb 23 - March 14, Frances Keevil Art Gallery, Double Bay, Sydney, Australia The Figure Now 2010 International Juried Exhibition, February, Fontbonne University Fine Arts Gallery, St. Louis, MO Open Painting 2010 Juried Exhibition, Jan 17 - Feb 5, Maxwell Mays Gallery at the Providence Art Club, Providence, RI 2009 Fairhaven Mausoleum Art Exhibition, Juried Exhibition, Santa Ana, CA Graduate Painting, XL Projects, Syracuse, NY Drawn In, Works on Paper Exhibition, June 26 - July 4, Frances Keevil Art Gallery, Sydney, Australia Drawing, XL Projects, Syracuse, NY Australian Lithuanian Art Exhibit, Bansktown Town Hall, Sydney, Australia Graduate Drawing Exhibition, The Wall, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY The Nude in Contemporary Art, A National Juried Exhibition, Jan 26 - Feb 25, A.D. Gallery, University of North Carolina, Pembroke, NC

2008 Sotto Voce, Fairhaven Mausoleum, Juried Exhibition, Santa Ana, CA Feminism Rhetoric, Spark Gallery, Syracuse, NY MFA Exhibition, Spark Gallery, Syracuse, NY Graduate Painting Exhibition, The Wall, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 2007 Capturing the Force of Stillness, Fairhaven Mausoleum, Juried Exhibition, Santa Ana, CA Fine Arts Exhibition, 7 Degrees Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA The Romance of Prague, the Glory of Vienna, Laguna College of Art & Design, Laguna Beach, CA 2006 Passport to China Exhibit, Contemporary Chinese Fine Art, Laguna Beach, CA Summer LCAD, Hopsings Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA The Light and Splendor of Holland, Laguna College of Art & Design, Laguna Beach, CA VISITING ARTIST/PANELS + CURATORIAL 2019 Visiting Artist - The Westminster Schools, Atlanta, GA 2017 Visiting Artist – Riverdale Country School, New York, NY Visiting Artist Lecturer: The University of Dayton, Department of Art & Design, Dayton, OH Visiting Artist Lecturer – Wright State University, Art & Art History Department, Dayton, OH Visiting Artist Lecturer – California State University Northridge, Art Department, Northridge, CA Visiting Artist Lecturer – Arizona State University, The Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, Tempe, AZ Visiting Artist – Syracuse University, College of Visual and Performing Arts, Painting, Syracuse, NY Lecturer + Workshop Instructor – Sla307 Non-Profit Art Space, November, New York, NY A.I.R. + Lecturer at The Cooper Union School of Art Summer Art Intensive, July + August, New York, NY Juror + Panelist for The Hardy’s 54th Annual Exhibition, June 17th – July 17th, The Hardy Gallery, Ephraim, WI 2014 Artist Panel: The Way of the Flesh, September 28th, Mt. San Antonio College, Walnut, CA 2013-2014 Curator, Flesh and Bone - articulating the human condition, Nov 7th, 2013– Jan 12th, 2014, SU Galleries, Syracuse University, NY 2014 + 2011 Lecturer – Drawing Conference, Open Figure Drawing, Inc. Westcott Community Center, Syracuse

HONORS, AWARDS + PUBLIC WORKS 2018 Commissioned Bronze Sculpture Artist, Holden Arboretum, Kirtland, Ohio 2016 Artist in Residency at The Cooper Union School of Art, New York, NY 2011 Nancy Jermanovich Award for Work in Drawing, Syracuse University, NY Joan Mitchell MFA Nominee, Syracuse University, NY 2010-2011 Filisteres Gražinos Musteikytes Grand Scholarship, Vydunas Fund, Lemont, IL 2010 Dorthea I. Shaffer Award, Syracuse University, NY 2009-2010 Jerome Solomon Memorial Scholarship, Syracuse University, NY 2008-2011 Tuition Scholarship, Syracuse University, NY 2007 Best Thesis Award, Fine Arts, Laguna College of Art & Design, Laguna Beach, CA First Place Sculpture, The Pacific Art Foundation, Laguna Beach, CA 2006 Plotkin Award, Peter & Masha Plotkin Memorial Foundation, Lake Forest, CA Best of Show, The Pacific Art Foundation, Laguna Beach, CA 2005-2007 Commissioned Bronze Sculpture Artist, James and Rosemary Nix Nature Center: Laguna Beach, CA 2003 – 2007 Laguna College of Art & Design Laguna College of Art & Design Merit Scholarship, Laguna Beach, CA ​

BIBLIOGRAPHY 2019 Thisness and Whatness, Exhibition Catalogue, Felician University, Essay by Stephen Maine, Curated by Scott Reeds 2018 Vessels, Exhibition Catalogue, High Noon Gallery, Essay by Tom McGlynn 2017 The Painted Desert, Exhibition Catalogue, High Noon Gallery, Essay by Elena Goukassian.

2016 Cooper Union Summer Art Intensive 2016 Anthology, The Cooper Union Recommended: “Introductions 2016” at Trestle, Sharon Butler, twocoatsofpaint.com, Jan 26 2015 Fresh Paint Magazine, Dec Ed., Juror, Danielle Krysa – The Jealous Curator Landing a Job in Academia, Matthew Daub, Professional Artist Magazine, Aug/Sep, pg. 28 - 37 2014 The Way of the Flesh Part II, Exhibition Catalogue, Mt. San Antonio College. Curated by Fatemeh Burnes, Essay

by John Seed, Walnut, CA ‘Unis’ at Charles Allis Museum: Unicorns Alive and Well on the East Side, Kat Murrell, shepherdexpress.com, Aug 27 Body Language, Exhibition Catalogue, Curated by George Herms, Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Ana, CA 2013 Studio Visit Magazine, Volume 21, Curated by Dina Deitsch, Senior Curator of deCordova Sculpture Park & Museum 2012 The Other New York 2012, Exhibition Catalogue, The Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY 2011 On the Edge: Statements in Black and White, S-Cube Gallery, Essay by Peter Frank, Laguna Beach, CA Fishing From the Beach, Syracuse University, Introduction by David Ross, Curatorial Essay by Bard Curatorial Candidates: Janine Armin, Rachel Cook, Suzy Halajian, and Leora Morinis.

Head of the Class, The Post-Standard, Art, Page 12, Sunday, May 1, 2011, Syracuse NY

2010 Riviera, Modern Luxury Magazine, December, pg. 20 & 74.

Kentucky National 2011 Catalogue, Clara M. Eagle Gallery, Murray State University, Murray, KY 2007 Publication of Senior Thesis Paper, Laguna College of Art & Design: Laguna Beach, CA PUBLIC COLLECTIONS James and Rosemary Nix Nature Center, Laguna Beach, CA Laguna College of Art & Design, Laguna Beach, CA Mt. San Antonio College, Walnut, CA Holden Arboretum, Kirtland, OH ​

Daina Mattis | Vessels October 11 - November 11, 2018 Edition of 100

Publisher: © 2018 Jared Linge HIGH NOON GALLERY

Art © 2018 Daina Mattis Text © 2018 Tom McGlynn Photography: Adam Reich

All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reprinted or reproduced in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, without prior permission from the publisher.

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cover: Surrender, 2018, oil on linen mounted to panel, 45 x 45 inches