Matthew Chambers

For his representational, abstract, and ripped “strip” paintings, Matthew Chambers draws equally from art history, pop culture, and his own imagination. For him, art’s objective is to give pause, to slow down the world. With this in mind, the artist’s goal is to transfix the viewer, if only momentarily, by their own experience of seeing rather than by the mechanics of production or the myth of the object which often frame the experience of a painting. As agents of time dilation, his paintings are not to be seen as critical foils to contemporaneity but as meditative portals unhinged from the traditional theoretical frameworks usually required for visual entry into a painting.

Chambers has repeatedly presented artist's books alongside his paintings. Reflecting the artist’s studio, he offers the unedited, democracy of ideas (which most often never find their way into the exhibition space) through handmade books that index every possible painting. In presenting every idea, Chambers acknowledges the presence of bad ideas, excessively charged imagery, and everything in between, while also exposing his personal editing process. Where the books imply the continuing sense of freedom, risk, failure, work for work’s sake, and private catharsis, the paintings show restraint and seriality through a primary focus on formal concerns.

Chambers has had solo exhibitions in New York at Zach Feuer, UNTITLED, and Rental Gallery, in addition to shows at Blanket Gallery in Vancouver and Steve Turner Gallery in Los Angeles. His work has been included at group exhibitions at Rubell Family Collection/Contemporary Arts Foundation in Miami, Marlborough in Madrid, Brand New Gallery in Milan, and MOCA, The Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles, among other venues.

Courtesy of Zach Feuer