Nick Mathis
"Memory and physical space are driving forces in Nic Mathis’s work. His subject matter is culled from the memories that persist after first impressions or vivid dreams, resulting in drawings and paintings of weeds, flowers, and the distorted forms of furniture, detritus, animals, and people. Mathis’s compositions record his reactions to these memories within the perimeters of the canvas, the paper, or even his immediate environment.
Mathis’s interest in memory is driven by his experience with color synesthesia, a neurological phenomenon that elicits involuntary associations between colors and other entities, such as letters and numbers in individuals. It only follows that his experience of this phenomenon informs his choice of subject matter (chairs, shadows, obscured human and animal forms) and color palette (often muted and limited, but liberally splashed with black). These choices illustrate an exploration of memories that are rooted in inexplicable and personal color relationships.
Moving fluidly between mediums and projects Mathis has made this movement a constant throughout his paintings, drawings, and sculpture. In Mathis' oil paintings dark shadows aggressively retreat into corners of canvas and push chairs and limbs toward the viewer, forcing movement throughout the surfaces of the paintings. Even in the sterility of the small pen drawings Mathis teases out depth and movement through line and shadow. The nervous sense of space created in Mathis’ drawings, as well as the transient state of objects, informs a sculptural practice that incorporates cast-off items like shoes and traffic cones and found sculptures of matadors and madonnas whose status as detritus is called into question through Mathis’ wor
Mathis builds upon personal memories, his own history of transience and collecting, and his unique relationship with color to create work that cannot help but stick within a viewers' mind. His on-going engagement with sketching has produced thousands of pages of drawings—but a glimpse of the history of his engagement with and reactions to his physical environment."
-Laura Phipps
CHAOS is on view through August 12 - Tuesday through Saturday, 12-5pm
Ro2 Art Downtown - 110 North Akard
Ro2 Art's annual small works show features intimately scaled artwork by over 100 artists.
Mathis’s interest in memory is driven by his experience with color synesthesia, a neurological phenomenon that elicits involuntary associations between colors and other entities, such as letters and numbers in individuals. It only follows that his experience of this phenomenon informs his choice of subject matter (chairs, shadows, obscured human and animal forms) and color palette (often muted and limited, but liberally splashed with black). These choices illustrate an exploration of memories that are rooted in inexplicable and personal color relationships.
Moving fluidly between mediums and projects Mathis has made this movement a constant throughout his paintings, drawings, and sculpture. In Mathis' oil paintings dark shadows aggressively retreat into corners of canvas and push chairs and limbs toward the viewer, forcing movement throughout the surfaces of the paintings. Even in the sterility of the small pen drawings Mathis teases out depth and movement through line and shadow. The nervous sense of space created in Mathis’ drawings, as well as the transient state of objects, informs a sculptural practice that incorporates cast-off items like shoes and traffic cones and found sculptures of matadors and madonnas whose status as detritus is called into question through Mathis’ wor
Mathis builds upon personal memories, his own history of transience and collecting, and his unique relationship with color to create work that cannot help but stick within a viewers' mind. His on-going engagement with sketching has produced thousands of pages of drawings—but a glimpse of the history of his engagement with and reactions to his physical environment."
-Laura Phipps
CHAOS is on view through August 12 - Tuesday through Saturday, 12-5pm
Ro2 Art Downtown - 110 North Akard
Ro2 Art's annual small works show features intimately scaled artwork by over 100 artists.
