Matthew Lauretti news
Matthew Lauretti @ Ward Nasse Gallery , NYC
3-28 August, 2010
Closing reception: 21 August, Saturday. 7-10 pm.
http://ward-nassegallery.blogspot.com/
"Lauretti’s work juxtaposes materials to reveal tensions—between the natural and the man-made, the city and suburbia, class and culture—creating a record of our desires, obsessions, and excesses. Twentieth-century art movements such as Assemblage, Surrealism, and Arte Povera are revisited and updated by the artist highlighting his capacity to express humor, poetry, and greatness through humble means. His approach illustrates the characteristic strengths—and, at times, the principal weakness—of arts traditions. In his work, Lauretti does something riskier and more paradoxical, entering the spirit of perception as if to know it from the inside. He retains something youthful yet knowing. Crucially it is this swirling inner contradiction that visually shows how successful his work is at dealing with the human condition. Contradiction is Lauretti’s way of showing the unavailability of certainty about anything, specifically the human relationships. The result is an art stripped bare, and with an overture so bold and rich, it is hard not to be lured in."
Matthew Lauretti in “Subtle Arrangements”
A Group Project Curated by Basak Malone
October 16-30, 2010 @ Gelabert Gallery, NYC
http://www.gelabertstudiogallery.com
Executed through a dynamic visual language, Subtle Arrangements is structured upon the idea of pictorial clarity as the elimination of all obstacles between the artist and the idea, and between the idea and the observer. By paying close attention to the transitional works of each artist, curator Basak Malone constructs an exhibition of effortless compositions, luminous color and passionate ideas all of which are found through each artists own experimentations. Subtle Arrangements explores a deeply contemplative corner of the visual sphere. Malone brings together each of the artists in Subtle Arrangements in an effort to eliminate the boundaries of memory, history and geography in order to make a state of true visual creativity possible. The works span a dynamic assortment of stylistic and thematic conclusions that are linked by their reflective nature. Malone, who specializes in the representation of both emerging and established artists on an international scale, utilizes Subtle Arrangements as a forum to display the conclusion of a journey that begins with their imagination and ends with an act of expression.
Though each artist is unique in their style and approach, Malone’s group produces not only visual dialogue—but debate through a shared vision that finds expression through a formal idiom which investigates the relationship between order and chaos. From multimedia abstractions that explore the notion of landscape, to delicately rendered oils that depict vibrant and enigmatic amorphous forms that are the result of observation and emotion. Some of the artists use non-traditional materials in conjunction with oil paint, in an attempt to contrast the otherness or artificiality of materials. Other Subtle Arrangements explore the power of color through layering, transparency, and color juxtaposition. In concert, these works indicate exciting directions in new painting in terms of their materiality, and approach to color and media. Softening the hard edges of formalism, these works favor approaches that are playful and instinctive—echoing Malones curatorial style.
The works in Subtle Arrangements eschew nostalgia and spiritual platitudes in order to reference the ineffable within the materiality of existence.Employing the ideologies of both exhibition and symposium, this unique show emphasizes the process of creation and discovery. Marked by local and global relationships, aesthetics, and practices Subtle Arrangements comments on visual culture in a wider context.