Philip Martin Gallery is proud to present, "Index Color," a solo exhibition of new works by Los Angeles-based artist, Christy Matson. Matson's works emphasize line, color, shape and expression. Many depict California - the state in which Matson lives and works.
Christy Matson's wall pieces are made from painted and hand-dyed woven paper, cotton and linen. These compositions are then stitched to a rectangular support. A runner, beach-goer and avid hiker, Matson shows the Pacific Ocean she has lived on and around most of her life: its currents and sunsets, the land against the ocean, the smell of verbena and penstemon - we are under a catalpa perhaps - watching for the 'green flash’ of the sun as it slips beneath a wine-dark sea.
In the midst of this idyll, Matson makes viewers keenly aware of what weaving is, even if what weaving 'is' might be largely taken for granted in our age of globalized mass consumerism. One of humankind's most profound and impactful technologies, weaving is incredibly sensual and also incredibly conceptual. 12,000 years from its birth in the Neolithic era, textiles continue to shape our world.
During the Industrial Revolution, weaving, "transformed from a cottage industry to a highly mechanized one where workers were present only to make sure the carding, spinning, and weaving machines never stopped.” The Jacquard loom Matson uses in her studio was first developed in France in the early 1800s. The Jacquard loom is commonly described now as the first 'computer.' Its punchcard system prefigured modern processing hardware, instructing the loom to perform a sequence of controlled operations - outsourcing human knowledge - and the human brain.
Matson is in an interesting place then - she is the creator; she is the operator/user. She is an artist responding to her own creative impulses and a thinker considering the mechanical and conceptual interpretations inherent in working and programming the loom. "I have a very idiosyncratic set of steps," she notes. Matson’s show title, "Index Color," refers to the ways in which colors are indexed to build space in an image; the rhythms colors build to emphasize pattern; the means by which her ideas and drawings are translated to her woven wall works. Matson asks, "What is an index in our present moment in which everything is endlessly adaptable? In an era of machine intelligence, how do we define an index if we can't point to a fixed, specific reference? When everything merges and blends, where is the line between what's indexical and what's not?"
Weaving, like drawing and painting, has a relationship with technology that underpins our modern global consumer lifestyle and at the same time connects us to the rhythms and materials of our planet. It is both an elemental and a modern activity, basic and complicated, that resonates with our senses and instincts, always changing as humanity evolves, opening doors for expression and new understandings of the world in which we live.
Christy Matson (b. 1979, Seattle, WA) received her BFA from the University of Washington (Seattle, WA) and her MFA from California College of the Arts (San Francisco, CA). Matson’s work has recently been featured in solo exhibitions at Philip Martin Gallery (Los Angeles, CA); Volume Gallery (Chicago, IL); Milwaukee Art Museum (Milwaukee, WI); Cranbook Museum of Art (Bloomfield Hills, MI); and Long Beach Museum of Art (Long Beach, CA). Matson's work has been seen in such exhibitions as “Arcadia and Elsewhere,” James Cohan Gallery (New York, NY), “Seeing Chicago,” curated by Duro Olowu (Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL); “40 Under 40: Craft Futures” (Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Washington, DC); John Michael Kohler Art Center (Sheboygan, WI); Contemporary Arts Museum (Houston, TX); Knoxville Museum of Art (Knoxville, TN); Municipio di Maniago, (Pordenone Italy); Virginia Commonwealth University (Richmond, VA); Ciurlionis National Museum of Art (Kaunas, Lithuania); Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago, IL); Bakersfield Museum of Art (Bakersfield, CA); Craft and Folk Art Museum, (Los Angeles, CA); and Museum of Craft and Folk Art (San Francisco, CA). Articles and reviews on Christy Matson’s work have appeared in New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Sculpture, Fiber Arts, Textile, Artillery, Surface Design Journal and Time Out. Matson is represented by Volume (Chicago, IL) and Rebecca Camacho Presents (San Francisco, CA). Christy Matson lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
Christy Matson's exhibition is on view November 9 - December 21, 2024, with an opening for the artist Saturday, November 9 from 5-8pm.
Matson's work will be the subject of a Zoom Webinar conversation Friday, November 15 9am PST/12 noon EST. A link to sign up is in the 'News' section of Christy Matson's page on the gallery website.
Philip Martin Gallery is open Wednesday-Saturday 11-5 and Tuesdays by appointment. The gallery is located at 3342 Verdugo Road, Los Angeles CA 90065. For additional images and information please call 323-507-2037 or email info@philipmartingallery.com.
