Matthew Craven
Asya Geisberg Gallery is pleased to present "Extra! Extra!", a virtual exhibition of large-scale works by AGG artists. With detailed views and a figure to show the scale of each work, the exhibition places the largest works by each artist to converse with one another, showing the symmetries within the gallery programme.
Entirely collage, Matthew Craven's "Clusster" is comprised of images cut from old textbooks, on the back of a vintage movie poster. The tiny cut pieces on first glance look like chunks of rock, but are actually selective cutouts of large landscapes mixed with black and white images of Modern sculpture. The warm sepia cast of the books and aged poster amplifies the millennia-old rock formations. The overall textile-patterning suggests a riff on scientific classification, as Craven finds a parallel in the artistry of Nature and Modernists such as Henry Moore.
Melanie Daniel's painting "Two Shores Away and Still Sloshing" is a mixture of her signature acid colors, frenetic mark making, and preoccupation with the human relationship to nature and our planet. The lone figure slogging through a raucously painted swamp, a possible survivor of an apocalypse or off-the-grid Florida Man, melts into the background as he tugs a patched raft carrying a precious plant through water stretching to a curved horizon.
Jasper de Beijer's "The Brazilian Suitcase (Part 3) #1" is part of a larger series based on three fictional expeditions in search of a lost civilization in the Amazon. A mixture of photographs taken on De Beijer's trip to the Amazon, digital imagery, and sets built in the studio, this image represents the final expedition, where former religious sites have been submerged under a lake, and jungle has taken over all that remained of the former tribe. The resulting work is a moody and mysterious reminder of human endeavors and foibles, equally mythical and real.
Marjolijn de Wit's painting "More Than Just Another" is based on her small ceramic collages, and shows enigmatic sharply fragmented shapes sitting atop a creamily-painted abstracted background. The space seems both a vast landscape and a magnified view of small mysterious artifacts, a nod to her interest in future archeology and the interpretation of history. The delicate shimmering colors suggest snow, refracted light, and a reality just beyond our grasp.
Ricardo Gonzalez's paintings ricochet between the sublime and the nihilistic, creating a tacit dialogue between satirical cartoon and evocative painterly gesture. In "Phone Was Ringin', This Foot Came Through the Line," a figure fragments into grimaces and smirks, invoking a sort of savage full of uninhibited energy that could easily be found in early rock n' roll or the tales of early outlaw blues songs. Gonzalez echoes a history of Expressionistic painters, and adds a sense of humor and his former life as a musician to embed personal histories within.
Angelina Gualdoni's "Leadlight" incorporates overlapping pours and variegated pattern caused by paint pushing through from the back of the canvas. The shimmering, metaphoric interior subsumes the decorative and utilitarian items that build our everyday lives, while fragmented geometric patterns add structure and reference wallpaper, textiles, and early-20th century women artists such as Sonia Delaunay and Barbara Stepanova. The title "Leadlight" refers to stained glass framing, which is mimicked in the lightness and heaviness of different parts of the painting.
The largest work of the bunch, Rebecca Morgan's 9-foot hyper-detailed pencil drawing "Panty Stealers (After Diana and Actaeon)" updates the Greek myth of the hunter Actaeon, who encounters Diana and her handmaidens bathing nude. Angered at being observed, Diana turns him into a stag, who is then torn apart by his own hunting dogs. Morgan updates the innocence of Norman Rockwell's "No Swimming" with a classical bathing scene, but twists the gaze, narrative power, and subjectivity on its head. Instead of a romanticized illustration of courtship or innocent hi-jinks, we see an act of violation, met with anger and disgust. Morgan's exquisite rendering and the drawing's confrontational scale both engages and repels the viewer.
Trish Tillman's "Traveler" wall sculpture juxtaposes diverse materials, transcending function to reflect material fetishism and idiosyncratic cultural references. Leather, chains, hardware, and a motorcycle tailpipe coexist on a totemic upholstered shape. Horsehair comes out of the oval exhaust pipe orifice, suggesting an uncanny mixture of body, machine, and furniture decor.
Shane Walsh's "Untitled" uses impeccable technique to mimic collage, photocopy, and silkscreen prints. Walsh's vibrant palette and cut-and-paste aesthetic lends itself to 80's and 90's pop-culture references such as MTV, Garbage Pail Kids and skateboard graphics.
