Williamsburg’s Box of Jewels
By Isabella Chalfant and Sam Beirne
Olga Tobreluts
Dollar
2018
Lenticular Panel
39 x 39 Inches AVAILABLE AT MATNEY GALLERY
“A Glimpse Into the Future” is The Matney Gallery’s current exhibition, curated by John Lee Matney with Isabella Chalfant as co-curator. The show emphasizes forward movement as well as an appreciation of the past. Movement takes many forms and with the passage of time, art evolves, but evolution is also possible through past reflection. This show brings new and old pieces of art into dialogue with one another in order to highlight the gallery’s growth, as well as its newest phase. Lenticulars, traditional and transformative painting, photography, and sculpture are all on display.
Olga Tobreluts
Nimfa (Details)
2018
Master Edition 1/3
Stereo-Vario
40 Inch Diameter AVAILABLE AT THE MATNEY GALLERY
The Moment, 2022
Birdcage, wire, mirror and glass
14 × 14 × 46 in | 35.6 × 35.6 × 116.8 cm. VIEW ON ARTSY
Olga Tobreluts
Russian, b. 1970
Modernization I, 2002-printed 2012
Kodak Metallic Print Edition
47 1/5 × 55 1/10 in
119.9 × 140 cm
Edition of 5. VIEW ON ARTSY
Artists new to the gallery are juxtaposed with artists that have been associated with and shown by the gallery for quite some time. Olga Tobreluts, a pioneer in digital art, is a new artist with the gallery along with Ivan Plusch. While Olga represents the digital age of art and a world brought to life with technological evolution, Plusch takes a different approach. Ivan brings surrealism to the walls of the showroom in the form of paint on canvas. Melting figures that may have once been discernable liquefy in a way that defies gravity.
Markus Klinko, THE PROTECTOR, 2002, C-print, Purchase
Markus Klinko, HEATHEN, 2001, Fuji Crystal Archive Pearl printed by Welden Color Lab, VIIEW ON ARTSY
Other new artists like famous fashion photographer Markus Klinko don the gallery with extravagance in the form of David Bowie. His work exemplifies luxury as he brings Hollywood to Williamsburg, allowing viewers to glimpse celebrities and stars that everyone knows by name.
In the same space, rising star Rebecca Shkeyrov debuts some of her newest paintings. Vibrance dapples her canvases in brilliant hues of blue and orange. Geometry takes the shape of human forms and faces while she inserts herself in a world of pigments. Lastly, hanging from the ceiling is a sculpture by Soyeon Cho, an artist that has exhibited throughout Europe and the United States. A golden birdcage, suspended in the air, pours forth metallic tendrils freezing a single moment in time.
Art Rosenbaum
Self Portrait with Camera, 2001
Oil on linen
52 × 46 in | 132.1 × 116.8 cm VIEW ON ARTSY/MAKE OFFER
Teddy Johnson
Offering - Bee Balm, Oil and Acrylic on Canvas 30X38
Contact the gallery or buy this work
Airplane Bisecting the Moon, 2022
Archival pigment print
8 1/2 × 8 33/100 in | 21.6 × 21.2 cm
Edition of 12 VIEW ON ARTSY
Transcending time, artists that have worked with the Matney Gallery for many years make their presence known. Art Rosenbaum, an artist of much acclaim and a good friend of the gallery before his recent passing, is featured in a self-portrait. He painted himself in three different figures taking a picture allowing for the passage of time to be apparent in the process of painting. Ryan Lytle mixes classical sculptures with new age 3D printing, connecting the old and the new. He creates a dialogue that questions the placement of classic works of art in museums and brings art world current affairs to Williamsburg. All the while R.A. Jenkin creates quilts from long forgotten fabrics and traditions. Stamps sewn together create a mesmerizing array of history on a single quilt, asking how many letters they came from and how many pages of words did they once know.
Greensprings, Williamsburg, Virginia, April, 2020, 2020
Pinhole camera, gelatin silver contact print
4 × 5 in | 10.2 × 12.7 cm
Frame included. Purchase the photograph
The Royal Herd, 2022
Archival Pigment Print
16 4/5 × 30 in | 42.7 × 76.2 cm
Edition of 10, Purchase this work
R.A. Jenkin
Pictured: Cigarette Silk Quilt, 2022
Silk, cotton
48 × 72 in | 121.9 × 182.9 cm. VIEW ON ARTSY
Janice Hathaway
Photographer Briar Freer also graces the walls with serene black and white images of nature. His work then takes a turn and creates flares of bright orange in a different photograph, highlighting the versatility of his medium. Janice Hathaway, another photographer, creates her own surreal worlds from photographs that she has taken around the world. Her worlds bring dreams to the forefront and she is the gallery’s very own digital art pioneer.
Robert Wilson and Mirror, 1970
Archival Pigment Print
8 × 12 in | 20.3 × 30.5 cm
Editions 1-20 of 20 + 2AP Purchase
Ryan Lytle
_archive_
These works are a collection of objects created from scans of artifacts from museums by users posted on an online database. These object scans were them manipulated and altered to create compositions. They were then further manipulated in the 3d printers slicing software to layer the color shifts. The color shifts to me are reminiscent of layers of sediment in the earth, ultimately a representation of the passage of time. All files used to create these pieces are available for download and include links to the original files used. I chose these works for the glimpse into the future show because I like to imagine a future where high-quality scans of artworks and artifacts exist and are available to the public. If the true goal for harboring these items that are often stolen or acquired in otherwise problematic way is for preservation, protection, and accessibility, then the effort to scan and archive these objects would give these larger institutions the ability to return these objects without leaving the museums empty.
Link to STL files: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5657630
The entire show is pulled together by a film made by Brittainy Lauback, a new photographer and filmmaker with the gallery. Curator John Lee Matney’s own remarks on her film “Please Enjoy” relate the happenings of the film to coveted treasures and the want to reach out and touch them. This is similar to the exhibition, filling the walls of the showroom with coveted treasures of art and allowing viewers to come and behold such treasures turning the gallery itself into a box of jewels.
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