MATT COHEN

The more recent works in mixed media contain areas of layering in painted wire mesh and etched plexiglass which are my reflections on certain Spanish Baroque and Rembrandt layered paintings that create a depth in the darker realms of their works. My Lamentation is a direct response to Ribera’s painting of the same name. The exploration of these dark areas combined with a spatial expanse that reflects, and separates the use of the revealed. The thin, dark wires used take on a life of their own as they are utilized to fasten the material in place. What has always been important to me is revealing the history of mark making in my work - using transparent and translucent materials allows for this kind of reading. It should be noted that lying in the perimeter, outside the borders of the photo of these works are sections of fencing on which the wires are fastened. These are to be viewed as paintings, seen two dimensionally, rather than as wall sculptures.

Many years ago I discovered the writings of Virginia Woolf and the juxtaposition of time is a common theme in my work. This sense of time is not about memory so much as the presence of mind time with our physical time - each an integral part of our experiences. This is demonstrated in such paintings as Remembering the Sea, Remembering the Sea the Day Before, July 3rd, and, more recently, Raven With Landscape, Stepping off the Curb He Thought, What a Lark, among others.

The earlier Castle series was inspired by encountering a stone tower hidden in the woods on an overcast day. Its looming presence and my gradual awareness of it – sensing rather than seeing – the solid gray stone, was at first indistinguishable from the gray trees and sky. It became something present and not present. This led to later paintings visualizing both what is part of our experience in the physical world and the suggestion of an integrated world of images in our thoughts.

Overall, the way I paint has been influenced by the dichotomy of what might be referred to as the classical and expressionistic tendencies in western art. For me, the classical coveys a timelessness, or out of time experience; the expressionistic as something of a moment in time, or fleeting incident. The classical style can be several things, but I see it as incorporating a grayer, desaturated palette; the expressionistic, a more exciting, colorful one. I am drawn to the non-moment which is juxtaposed with that of incident. Also important is the sense of history in the making of my work - particularly in the three dimensional works which expose earlier decision making through wire, wire mesh and plexiglass.

 I have departed from the theme described above, to a degree, in a few paintings. The Saint Francis series, from 2019, begins to explore a vision inspired by Hindemith’s Nobilissima Visione. This work is also influenced by Giotto’s painting of St. Francis Preaching to the Birds.

The Eve series is an interpretation of the carved lintel found at Autun cathedral.

In The Last Judgement, Christ is an abstraction - He is steadfast, unmovable, while the evangelists in their beast forms swirl around Him. Inspired by Saint-Pierre abbey in Moissac.

Some things that have changed in a recent work, 2.25:  this piece is splitting two inclinations:  that of the gestural/movement - that I associate with a moment or an action - and the stillness of using the square or rectangle, forms to indicate out of time, the non-moment, although these forms are not rigidly geometrical and have traces of an individual's hand;  in other words, wobbly rectangles, and imperfect lines.  So, I decided to literally split the two in this work and, with it, burying the gestural scribbles of charcoal drawings beneath the screening.