Matthew Craig
It Changes We Change,
2011,
oil, panel, paper, acrylic, tape,
48x48 inches
Over Into Through, 2011, oil, panel, paper, acrylic, tape, 36x36 inches
Aritst Statement
I’m interested in constructing work that is made within a positivist framework, where reality is referenced through materiality as itself and as these configurations relate to the present condition. I want to move away from the logic of the Modern era by making work that is not reactionary to the so-called death of painting, the end of history, the end of Modernism, etc. The pervasively basic understanding of painting as a historic duration that is intrinsically, by nature of a perceived beginning, must have an end, is not a problem to be solved in my studio. Time and history are now extremely indefinite, with shifting meaning and contexts, and this is reflected in the work that I make. I’m not interested in depicting this condition through imagery or re-affirming painting as a stylistic or mythic endeavor. My work is about the present moment, something that can be felt not as an absolute singular or popular experience, but more as a state of being where questions of existence, progress, and value have no plausible answers.
More information available at www.matthewcraigart.com