NYAB Event - Matthew Fischer “Radio Paintings”

Matthew Fischer “Radio Paintings”

Junior Projects

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JUNIOR PROJECTS presents “Radio Paintings,” a solo exhibition of new paintings by Matthew Fischer. This is the artist’s first solo show at the gallery.

Matthew Fischer’s “Radio Paintings” begin with a written word (lran, Autism, NATO) sourced from the deluge of language on NPR, which he listens to in the studio. For Fischer, the infinite flow of information via radio waves is anxiety producing both in its abundance and ceaselessness. The word he selects breaks down into letters, which then devolve into simple forms. These forms are a launching point, first marks from which to begin the painting and also inform future compositional decisions, colors, and marks. The initial source word remains an intrinsic part of the painting whether visible or not. In this way, Fischer doesn’t necessarily paint the meaning of the word as much as use the word as a formal device.

Several of the paintings in this body of work do not begin with words but rather with disparate images Fischer acquires by accessing what he terms the River of Formation. Inspired by the River of Formation from Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha, Fischer likens the river to the radio waves. In both models, meanings shift, metaphor is born, and original content morphs often to the point of being unrecognizable. Through his process, Fischer interrogates what we do with the information we are subjected to, particularly as it unwittingly takes us captive.

Fischer’s lushly painted surfaces take a cue from the pre-Information age and the novelty of such innovations as early Modernist painting. Here, the impulse to abstract nature pays homage to artists such as Marsden Hartley and Arthur Dove and also nods to his own formative years growing up in rural Wisconsin. Fischer’s oil paintings are replete with energetic, confident brushwork and an intoxicating range of luminous color.

Matthew Fischer was born in Marshfield, Wisconsin in 1981 and lives and works in New York. He received his MFA from Columbia School of the Arts and has been an artist in residence at The Lighthouse Works on Fishers Island, New York and The Edward Albee Foundation in Montauk, New York. He has shown at Jack Tilton Gallery, Jack Hanley Gallery, and 247365 in New York.