Mara Lago
2021
Matthew Robinson
Acrylic on canvas
122 x 127 cm
Unframed
(Ships from the US)
Financing available (more)
1 Item
2021
Matthew Robinson
Acrylic on canvas
122 x 127 cm
Unframed
(Ships from the US)
Artwork description
Matthew Robinson’s painting documents the relational spirituality existing between architecture and the human experience. We can see references to the vernacular architecture of small cities and suburbs altered by the mid-to-late-century ideals. Fragments of structures, imagined or representational, are depicted simultaneously in a singular composition. Therefore, the ugly construction materials become part of a beautiful whole. The work is also a product of the artist’s own renovation efforts in his 1840’s home in Beacon.
Matthew Robinson
Matthew received his M.F.A. from Pratt Institute Brooklyn, NY, and his B.A. Central Connecticut State University New Britain, CT. Robinsons’ work has been exhibited in Chelsea at the Art Bridge Drawings Room, Fjord Gallery of Philadelphia, Gowanus Ballroom, Central Connecticut State University Gallery, Governors Island Art Fair, The New Britain Art League, and most recently Beacon Artist Union in Beacon, NY. He teaches drawing and painting at Eastchester High School, New York, and maintains a studio in Beacon, New York. b. 1985 Granby, Connecticut.
Artist statement:
Deconstructing architecture, suburban spaces, cityscapes, and places of public gathering, I paint layered compositions that strive to make sense of the economic and social history of ‘place.’ Attracted equally to the aesthetics of grandeur, craft, and visual blight, I erase the hierarchy of beauty and address this varied collection of architecture with equal care. A 19th-century gymnasium, dilapidated rowhouses with vinyl siding, or detritus from a temporary shelter merge and metaphysically communicate on the picture plane.Structures have anachronistic conversations in dream-time. I conjure the past and question systems of living all in the same space. Compositions and arrangements of curiosities set the stage for a conversation between landscape, architecture, and object. I use collage systems, digital processes, projection, and drawing aids to render both distorted and accurate graphical representation. My ever-growing collection of historical and personal photographs serve as source material. Painting these subjects is an act of compulsion, solving a puzzle, and an attempt at urban planning or un-planning. I question why the world looks the way it does while offering cosmic solutions unruly to the laws of gravity. Sifting through the debris of Americana is an act of soothsaying, a way to quiet anxieties and peer into the future.
