Matthew Mann “Fixer Upper”

Trestle Gallery

[Image: Matthew Mann "Crooked Studs" (2019) oil, acrylic and collage on canvas, 56 x 36 in.]

This event has ended.

Trestle Gallery presents Matthew Mann: Fixer Upper, an exhibition of recent paintings by the Washington, DC-based artist. In Mann’s paintings, detailed surfaces cover meticulously planned spaces. Filled with art historical references, 19th century wallpaper patterns, graphics from punk ephemera, and the latest tech gadgets, Mann’s interiors overflow with markers of cultural knowledge, both high and low, recast as lifestyle accessories and design accents. These emblems of bourgeois taste, divorced from their original context and significance, are situated in tightly crafted compositions, spaces that invite the viewer in, while only subtly alluding to possible escape routes.
Bystanders find themselves contained in Mann’s works, cornered by the claustrophobia of late capitalism. Mann’s detailed textures, lush colors, and well-considered arrangements offer beauty and visual satisfaction but leave their viewers trapped. Mondrian Lattice places the viewer directly in a corner, an ideal angle to admire the garish green and purple color combination of the detailed wallpaper, accented by a single misalignment. Shadows suggest the sun coming through the titular lattice work, but whatever exit or escape it might offer remains out of view.

When natural environments appear in Mann’s work, they’re rendered inaccessible, barely visible through partially obscured window panes or cut off from the viewer by elaborate scaffolding. In Crooked Studs, grids of wooden studs frame the view onto a lush treetop scene underneath hazy clouds. Despite the visibility of the trees, they’re inaccessible, unreachable from the viewers’ height. A smart home device hangs on the blatantly unfinished wall, transformed into pure status symbol by the impossibility of climate control.

Displaying his interest in pictorial mechanics, narrative, and irony, Mann’s work questions the role that fine art has in a tech enabled, hyper-capitalist moment in which art and artistic movements are taken up – regardless of their original intention – in order to achieve the retail goals of institutions, real estate development, and luxury lifestyle marketing.

About the artist: Matthew Mann is a painter based in Washington DC. A native of Kansas City, Missouri, Mann received his MFA from American University in 2002. He has been profiled and reviewed in a number of publications including the Washington Post, Hyperallergic, Creators Project and Bmore Art. He has been awarded grants from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities as well as the Creative Communities Fund. Mann has also participated in the Joya: Arte y Ecologia artist residency in Almeria Spain and been a visiting artist at George Washington University, Maryland Institute College of Art and Design, American University and the Luce Foundation Center at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Recent exhibitions include Luxury Trouble at Studio 1469 in Washington DC (2017); Strange Landscapes at Arlington Arts Center Arlington, VA (2016); Shape Play at Tiger Strikes Asteroid in Philadelphia, PA (2015); Associative Fugue at Project 4 Gallery in Washington DC (2014); and Salon of Little Deaths at Hamiltonian Gallery in Washington, DC (2013).

About the curator: Blair Murphy is a curator and writer based in Washington, DC and the Curator of Exhibitions at Arlington Arts Center in Arlington, VA. She was a Helena Rubinstein Curatorial Fellow of the Whitney Independent Study Program from 2014 to 2015. Her past curatorial projects include exhibitions at The Kitchen (New York, NY), Field Projects (New York, NY), Flashpoint Gallery (Washington, DC), Washington Project for the Arts (Washington, DC), VisArts Rockville (Rockville, MD), and DC Arts Center (Washington, DC). She was a Partner at Field Projects, an artist-run project space in New York, from 2015 to 2016, Program Director at Washington Projects for the Arts from 2011 to 2013, and a curator with Sparkplug, an artist collective sponsored by DC Arts Center, from 2008 through 2011. She has written for Hyperallergic, BmoreArt, DCist, and Daily Serving, among other outlets. She holds a BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art and an MA from Georgetown University.