Matt Christy

Together, Let’s Change Our Names

Originally installed in a large warehouse space in Nashville, the exhibition, Together Let’s Change Our Names, combines the works of three painters. All three artists flirt with the history of abstract painting but allow images and texts to reorient abstraction in the world. Painting is their way of quieting the viewer and engaging them physically, suspending an audience’s ability to name in hopes that they can leave the old names behind and find new ones. From Matt Christy’s banner paintings that hang in the middle of the room, to David Onri Anderson’s tenderly painted images of Candles and Lanterns, and Terry Thacker’s painting of notes on a play, they create a theatrical space that is both fragile and grand.

Future Flags

These paintings hang like banners and flags loose from the architecture of a frame or stretcher. Built out of variations on the “x”, a central symmetrical shape that cancels and standardizes the composition. The “x” can also be read as a stand-in, a sign that constantly deters the naming of its object, leaving the center of meaning open and unknown. They are flags for a missing people or a people that don’t yet exist, a fictional community.

A new flag calls for a new subjectivity.

A flag either rejects you or gains your allegiance. This was the goal of abstraction in painting, to reject you, then gain your identification, and ultimately, indoctrinate you into a community that praises ambiguity. That can be a breath of fresh air when the other flags are telling you where to stand, when to sit, how to smile, how to think, what to say, when to say it. A new flag. A revaluation of values.

Ideally the flags would hang in the middle of a space just below head height with room to walk around them and see both sides.

Contact me if you would like to buy a flag, $350$.

2017/12/142018/04/01 by Matt Christy Leave a comment

Limestone

2017 5.5×7, digital offset, 80 pgs . Edited/designed by David King. Edition of 100.

Working closely with a small independent publisher in Nashville David King and I produced Limestone. Based on a series of drawings that all feature a figure hiding under a rock, Limestone, follows this anonymous character through a series of changing stages, from celebratory and fortunate to tragic and humorous. 2017 5.5×7, digital offset, 80 pgs . Edited/designed by David King. Edition of 100. They are available to purchase at ExtendedPlayPress.com.

2017/02/19 by Matt Christy Leave a comment

They Were All Talking At The Same Time So I Grew More Ears

Different mediums weave strands of fractured narratives together in ‘They Were All Talking At The Same Time So I Grew More Ears’ at Seed Space in Nashville, TN.

wing-mite-steal-show-together — Wing Mite Steals the Show, 2017, cornstarch and oil pastel on paper, each panel 36”x24”

detail-wing-mite — Detail of Wing Mite Steals the Show

dog-god — DogGod, 2017, cornstarch and tempra on canvas, 48”x35”

The Red Curtain, 2017, yarn and wood, 78''x35'' — The Red Curtain, 2017, yarn and wood, 78”x35”

limestone-panorama — Limestone,2017, paper on panel, 120”x59”

2017/02/182017/02/19 by Matt Christy Leave a comment

Placebo Theater

Placebo Theater was a art show at Sauvage Galerie on August 20^th. It included performances and a show of my works. Below is the text that went with it:

Even though art is mere shadow play, a theatrically induced placebo effect, we still take our art pills regularly. And hey, it’s done wonders for our backs and cured our pernicious certitude.

The 70 collage drawings in “Placebo Theater” are based on photocopies of a sketch I made at a low point during a break up. That faceless, cartoony surrogate peaking out from under a rock became the starting point for a meditation on individuality and narrative.

Scopophilia! Sounds like a pathology doesn’t it. But the image is not going away anytime soon. Look. Be aroused. And then let’s go into the world with our misunderstandings of it and ourselves and others and make things, pictures, hats, words, sounds. It’s the only way.

In addition to the works on paper there will be three performances. Jacob Bernardi Stovall leads a Powerpoint-assisted sermon via the inorganic vernacular of search engine query. Think Tony Robbins meets William S. Burroughs with a hint of Bill Gates. Meagen Crawford becomes her own hydra-mimetic monolith of audio & visual ekphrastic poetries. And I’m chanting.

Thanks to Matt Johnstone for helping arrange the evening.

placebo-theatre1 — 70 collage photo copies, each 8 1/2×11

placebo-3 — four ink and collage drawings, each 18x22inches

polka-wiggles — also included in the show was a series of abstract photocopy collage drawing where the polka dots start to warp and bend, each 8 1/2×11 inches

x-polka-dot-1 — photocopy collage drawing 8 1/2×11 inches

grid-grid — Grid, Grid, Hiccup, 2016, fabric and embroidered ribbon

video-still-polka-dots — Video still of the performance including details of the polka dot shoe hat with bells, collar, and oversized shoe with bells

2016/09/092017/02/19 by Matt Christy Leave a comment

Truculent Spores

This is a unique hand bound book called “Truculent Spores” made from 100 photocopied photocopies of several hundred drawings. Truculent meaning ready to fight and spores being this little fungal seeds that might grow up to be their own organism. I think this book as a compendium of argumentative baby ideas.

2016/04/272017/02/19 by Matt Christy Leave a comment

ALWAYS NEVER NOW (The Drawings)

Check out Kate Savage’s review of ‘Always Never Now’ in Number 84

Here’s a link to some music I made that’s related to the drawings to, Set the Guilty Free.

2015/10/022017/02/19 by Matt Christy Tags: Collage, Disjecta, Matt Christy, Portland Leave a comment

The Monkey Animation

The Monkey Animation was in the Portland International Film Festival in 2014 and shown at the Deep Play Fun House Show at Seed Space in Nashville in 2015. Jenny Kroik, a good illustrator and animator in her own right, helped with the animation and Olga Oseth did wonders designing the sound for the piece.

2015/09/192017/02/19 by Matt Christy Leave a comment

Either You’re Going to My Funeral or I’m Going to Yours

“Either You’re Going to My Funeral or I’m Going to Yours” was a collaborative show Chelsea Couch and I had at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art in Eugene, Oregon, in May 2015. In the performance “Always Never Now” we appear dressed in ski masks with frilly collars banging on a homemade drum set and exchanging random words. Punctuating the performance is the refrain “Always! Never! Now!” expressing both affirmation and self-negation. Either You’re Going to My Funeral or I’m Going to Yours was our attempt to articulate frustration, urgency, and a little joy.

2015/06/022017/02/18 by Matt Christy Tags: Always Never Now, Chelsea Couch, Eugene, Jordan Schnitzer Museum Leave a comment

Fake Brain

In 2015 I made 3 episodes of ‘Fake Brain’ that centered around me a dirty sock puppet. This is the second episode. It also stars Daniel Lopez and Jam Tolles.

2015/03/192017/02/19 by Matt Christy Leave a comment