STUDIO VISIT: MATT CHRISTY
DEC. 07, 2017
STUDIO VISIT: MATT CHRISTY
DEC. 07, 2017
I am a confused person making what my friend and fellow artist Nick Stolle called "forlorn propoganda." Lots of energy but no guide. Energy free for the taking. Placeholders and stand ins. Signals. Precoded Symbols. Marking a territory, taking up space. Enter new word here. Name it ambiguity. Single it out as a locatable and symbolic, psychological space: Anxiety ridden AMBIGUITY. Flags to urge on and usher in the future. Symbols for the not yet made, a coming production. Magic symbols that mark a jumping off point, an independence, a personal renaissance, a more free, more humble, more hopeful version of myself. A call to war. Electroshock for the rebel flag and its defenders, but also anathema to the new world beckoned forth by the good intentioned, liberal gentlemen. Hello future strikes and refusals. Hello fragile collective of friends. A new flag needs a new subjectivity. A flag either rejects you or gains your allegiance. This was the goal of abstraction in painting, to reject you, then gain your identification, and ultimately, indoctrinate you into a community that praises ambiguity. That can be a breath of fresh air when the other flags are telling you where to stand, when to sit, how to smile, how to think, what to say, when to say it. A new flag. A revaluation of values.
- Matt Christy, November 2017