VW (VeneKlasen/Werner) is pleased to present Line Breaks, an exhibition of new works by Matt Connors. The exhibition opens Tuesday 6 September and continues through 22 October.
Matt Connors believes in the potential for invention and renewed meaning in abstract painting. His practice embraces abstraction as a poetic language, disregarding the end-game discussion that surrounds much of contemporary painting in favor of an open-ended investigation into image making. Valuing the pleasure of non-verbal, contemplative looking over conceptual gamesmanship, unabashedly borrowing from a range of sources and art historical precedents, including mid-century American painting, typographic design and the formal structures of modern poetry, Connors reinterprets and extends the late-modernist narrative. Connors’s technique is often decidedly hands-off, relying as much on willful mark making as it does on the incidents and accidents of studio practice - the "marks of making". While his creative process appears coolly cerebral, employing scant virtuosity or painterly finesse in any traditional sense, the paintings are neither cold nor ironic. His combined use of frottage, staining, overpainting and drawing creates an expressive space devoid of common, painterly gestures or brushwork. The result is an earnest yet subtle emotional intensity.
For his exhibition at VW Matt Connors created an entirely new body of work comprising paintings, drawings and elements of sculpture. The works are installed with a particular sensitivity to the visual dialogue they share with one another and the spaces they inhabit. Methods of hanging and placement conflate optical and physical layers, introducing elements of illusion and heightening the play between surface and atmosphere. Discreet objects, each possessing a unique character and appearance, the works are also participants in a broader formal choreography specific to Line Breaks.
Matt Connors (b. 1973, Chicago) lives and works in New York City. Since 2006 he has participated in solo and group exhibitions internationally. His first museum exhibition was recently presented by Dallas Museum of Art as part of their Concentrations series devoted to contemporary art and focused on the work of emerging artists.
Matt Connors: Line Breaks opens with a reception for the artist Tuesday 6 September from 18:00 to 21:00. For more information please call +49 30 8161 60418 or visit vwberlin.com.