Chason Matthams
a Hell for RainbowsMay 5 - June 9, 2019
images
Thierry Goldberg Gallery is pleased to present A Hell for Rainbows, Chason Matthams’
second solo exhibition with the gallery. The show opens May 5th, with a
reception from 6 to 8pm, and will run until June 9th.
Over the course of his career, Matthams has cast a
wide net, reeling in images from all over the digital spectrum, their forced
juxtapositions leading to pointed and humorous commentary on the symbols and
stories with which we choose to tell
individual and collective histories. Here the artist continues his project of
attempting to condense an array of disparate information into a narrative,
though in A Hell for Rainbows, he has chosen to hone in
on specific elements.
Revisiting imagery from previous work—classical
busts, camera equipment, and elements from the natural world—and casting it
under a different light, Matthams highlights how more macro-cultural
mythologies are shifted and redefined over time. Various themes and myths
are condensed in his new bust paintings, echoing how motifs and hero archetypes
wend their way from Gilgamesh into popular culture box offices. While this
reframing of meaning to suit contemporary needs may end in escapist fantasy, we
can’t help but resonate with the fundamental myths that still shape the culture
around us.
Backdropped by Thomas Moran’s then-galvanizing
depictions of natural beauty, Matthams presents the rainbow, itself a utopian
and escapist symbol, in various states
of diffusion on a shiny, ephemeral balloon. Its spectrum increasingly
refracted, the seemingly tainted forms of the prototypical image nod to the
impossibility of an unimpaired and objective perspective as its full spectrum
of hues collapse in on themselves, losing some hues entirely. The rainbow
balloon is both a bastardization of the original natural splendor it represents
and a celebration of it.
In Matthams’
corsage paintings, the vibrant blooms are set in
contrast to the materiality and geometry of their containers. While the corsage
can be viewed as a symbol of a celebratory event, the plastic box, along with
the eventual wilting of the encased flowers, calls to mind a casket. Similarly,
the rigid casings of the cameras do their best to
capture the ephemeral and daunting light of their surroundings. However, the camera’s lens can only record
that at which it’s pointed, and surrounding elements, however crucial,
are rendered superfluous by the limiting scope of the frame. Matthams has
painted cameras previously, though these are altered, pointed in new
directions, focused on a new source of light, stressing the importance of
refreshing one's own organizing principles as stories and symbols shift in
meaning, all while knowing this new calibration, too,
will soon fall out of focus.
Chason
Matthams (b. 1981, Pacific Grove, California) lives and works in New York,
NY. He received an MFA and a BFA from New York University. Matthams has had
solo shows at Thierry Goldberg Gallery (New York, NY), Tyler Wood Gallery (San
Francisco, CA), and has participated in group shows at Interstate Projects (Brooklyn,
NY), Launch F18 (New York, NY), and Danese Corey (New York, NY), among others.