Artist Talk: Friday, August 2 at 5:30pm
Opening Reception: Friday, August 2, 6 – 8pm
Exhibition Runs: August 2 – 29, 2019
Matthew Bollinger’s recent works on paper stem from a conscious appreciation of popular music (Devo, New Order, Sonic Youth, Autechre, Joy Division, Gang of Four, Talking Heads, etc), and the unconscious collaborative role it plays in his visual explorations. His work represents the convergence of traditional painting and drawing techniques, architectural principals, and various forms of digital technology.
Through experience, there are certain entranced habits that Bollinger acquired in the midst of his studio process. Towards a resolved composition, he commonly creates digital sketches, begins a canvas on the top left, limits aesthetic operational moves, and considers completion in defined phases. He inserts ideas about art, architecture, and design into the visual equation while remembering that certain things have worked more successfully than others. Conversely, he values the introduction of less familiar studio variables to revolve around, explore, and fixate upon. A variable generates a unique visual result because the studio environment is transformed into a different reality. In the studio, silence and sound envelop process and can be interpreted as a constant variable.
About Matthew Bollinger
R. Matthew Bollinger is a New Mexico based artist. His work range includes painting, drawing, printmaking, and architectural public art. Born in Germany and raised in Colorado and New Mexico, Bollinger received his M.F.A. in painting from San Francisco Art Institute in 2012 and his M.Arch from the University of New Mexico in 2010. His studio process stems from the intersection of art and architecture. Bollinger is an Associate Professor of art and design at Diné College, the first tribal college established by Native Americans in 1968. He lives and works in Albuquerque, NM and Tsaile AZ.
“My work represents the convergence of traditional painting/drawing techniques, architectural principles, and various forms of digital technology. These creative disciplines are often considered separate but share overlying aesthetic principles, elements, and methodologies. In the studio–my experiments and iterations are conditioned by the architectural filters of site, section, elevation, and plan in a conceptual exploration of materials, place, and technology. My interests lie in the hybrid practices of repetition, appropriation, decontextualization, and layering within the context of placing digital and traditional studio techniques, side-by-side. This interplay and ephemeral dialogue instigates an interdisciplinary vocabulary that is abstracted, refined, and resolved.” – Matthew Bollinger