Open: Thur-Mon 11am-6pm

79 Newtown Lane, East Hampton, NY 11937, New York, United States
Open: Thur-Mon 11am-6pm


Visit    

Matthew Kirk: White Snake

Halsey McKay Gallery, New York

Sat 14 Jan 2023 to Mon 20 Mar 2023

79 Newtown Lane, East Hampton, NY 11937 Matthew Kirk: White Snake

Thur-Mon 11am-6pm

Artist: Matthew Kirk

Halsey McKay presents White Snake, Matthew Kirk’s second solo exhibition with the gallery. Known for his inventive use of commercial building materials, Kirk’s latest work is a series of large sculptural paintings inspired by the physical components of his studio.


Artworks

Matthew Kirk, Roadside Distraction, 2022

Chalk, graphite, acrylic paint marker, oil stick, spray paint, and dowels on plywood

1994 × 3150 mm

contact gallery
Matthew Kirk, An Ideal Window, 2022

Acrylic ink, tar paper, tyvek, cotton, and steel wire in artist frame

679 × 826 mm

contact gallery
Matthew Kirk, The Mess Arounds, 2022

Mixed media on canvas, pressure treated posts, plywood, rubber and steel tacks

1219 mm

contact gallery
Matthew Kirk, Would Creep, 2022

Chalk, graphite, acrylic paint marker, oil stick, and spray paint on plywood with hinges and brick

965 × 1626 × 254 mm

contact gallery
Matthew Kirk, A Story To Yell, 2022

Chalk, graphite, acrylic paint marker, oil stick, and spray paint on plywood with hinges

2134 × 2286 × 279 mm

contact gallery
Matthew Kirk, A Glimpse Into Friendly Territory, 2022

Chalk, graphite, acrylic paint marker, oil stick, and spray paint on plywood

1448 × 1930 mm

contact gallery
Matthew Kirk, Trophy, 2022

Mixed media on tar paper, steel wire mesh, twine, brass grommet, sun-aged basketball

241 × 343 mm

contact gallery
Matthew Kirk, Untitled (Yellow Band), 2022

Cement, log, plastic

305 × 1943 × 305 mm

contact gallery
Matthew Kirk, Untitled (Fire), 2022

Cement, log, plastic

438 × 991 × 279 mm

contact gallery
Matthew Kirk, Untitled (Shelves), 2022

Wood, Indian figurines, clay, leather, foam

914 × 1829 × 311 mm

contact gallery
Matthew Kirk, Don't Fight The Worry, 2022

Chalk, graphite, acrylic paint marker, oil stick, and spray paint on plywood

2451 × 2451 mm

contact gallery
Matthew Kirk, The Wrong Crowd, 2022

Chalk, graphite, acrylic paint marker, oil stick, and spray paint on plywood with hinges

2369 × 2140 mm

contact gallery
Matthew Kirk, Between Everything, 2022

Chalk, graphite, and acrylic paint marker on canvas in artist frame

914 × 1219 mm

contact gallery
Matthew Kirk, Up Through Ice, 2022

Chalk, graphite, and acrylic paint marker on canvas in artist frame

914 × 1219 mm

contact gallery
Matthew Kirk, Belong Everywhere, 2022

Chalk, graphite, and acrylic paint marker on canvas in artist frame

914 × 1219 mm

contact gallery
Matthew Kirk, Baby, 2022

Chalk, foil tape, graphite, acrylic paint marker, oil stick, and spray paint on plywood

2235 × 2089 mm

contact gallery
Matthew Kirk, Friendly Creep, 2022

Chalk, graphite, acrylic paint marker, oil stick, spray paint, and dowels on plywood

318 × 318 × 451 mm

contact gallery

Added to list

Done

Removed


Installation Views

Installation image for Matthew Kirk: White Snake, at Halsey McKay Gallery Installation image for Matthew Kirk: White Snake, at Halsey McKay Gallery Installation image for Matthew Kirk: White Snake, at Halsey McKay Gallery Installation image for Matthew Kirk: White Snake, at Halsey McKay Gallery Installation image for Matthew Kirk: White Snake, at Halsey McKay Gallery Installation image for Matthew Kirk: White Snake, at Halsey McKay Gallery Installation image for Matthew Kirk: White Snake, at Halsey McKay Gallery Installation image for Matthew Kirk: White Snake, at Halsey McKay Gallery

Kirk has consistently selected construction goods for his practice, as in his drywall paintings and tar paper weavings. In making White Snake, 4 x 8 sheets of plywood were pulled from the floor, walls, and drawing tables of his workspace and repurposed as surfaces for his objects. The immersive installation calls to mind the massive Floor works by Dieter Roth and Björn Roth. Kirk’s latest work has a strong relationship to Roth’s practice in which material stuff is subservient to the emotional and sensual experience for which it stands. Roth was not an artist who tolerated boundaries. In seeking to pulverize them, he elevated the processes by which things happen, embracing accidents, mutations, and accretions of detail over time.*

Where Roth’s Floors emphasized the index of accumulation, for Kirk it serves as a launching pad. Looking to expand beyond the standard rectilinear shape of painting, Kirk found suggestions in the residual marks on his home-made drawing tables, and notes on the walls. He began cutting them up with saws and putting things back together again as he made sense of how the marks fit into each other as new shapes. These intuitively cobbled forms began to suggest objects and characters from the natural world like animal hides, birds and human figures. While not specifically representational, they are suggestive of personalities and the room feels filled by a sprightly cast. These wooden surfaces are covered with Kirk’s signature mark-making and glyphic imagery reflecting his relationship to his own Navajo heritage and identity. His work often explores the space between hegemonic American visual image of the Native and his lived experience, exploiting the hackneyed to both embrace and question imposed cultural tropes.

Matthew Kirk (b. 1978, Ganado, AZ) lives and works in New York. He has had solo exhibitions at FIERMAN, NY; Halsey McKay Gallery, East Hampton, NY; Adams and Ollman, Portland, OR; Makasiini Contemporary, Turku, Finland; Louis B. James, NY, among others. He is a 2019 recipient of the Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship. His work is in the collections of the Everson Museum, Syracuse, NY; the Eiteljorg Museum, Indianapolis, IN; the Forge Collection, Taghkanic, NY, among others.

*From Press Release for Dieter Roth Björn Roth, January 23 - April 13, 2013, Hauser & Wirth, New York

Courtesy of the artist and Halsey McKay Gallery

By using GalleriesNow.net you agree to our use of cookies to enhance your experience. Close