Matt Arbuckle in conjunction with PAULNACHE, Gisborne, NZ presents...

SLUG UND LETTUCE

Opening: Friday, 3rd of January, 6:00PM

Exhibition: 3-25 January 2014 at PAULNACHE
Upstairs 89 Grey Street Gisborne 4010 NZ

Matt Arbuckles work explores a dialog between the construction and deconstruction of a painting. The narrative is one of space and perspective, where planes and illusion of depth are the topic for discourse, rather than direct representation. The viewer is therefore denied obvious footholds for interpretation, encouraging the experience to be dictated by an individual’s visual sensation and perception. The foundation of these paintings is the concept of accessibility for all. The blatant and at times aggressive marks encourage the experience of these paintings to not be over conceptulaised, but rather a celebration of painting for paintings sake.

Matt Arbuckle is a New Zealand painter who since been based in Berlin has reflected on the visual boundaries on where he appropriates his subject matter- ‘the comic strip’ From this initial strip, He began developing the forms he had extracted from comic iconography to hold more ambiguous forms; deconstructing and stripping back the subject matter of the figures to a simpler, more holistic forms. Whilst including painterly devises such as comic like features of framing, emulating a sense of narrative while also spatially challenging the plans of the painting.

‘’I have become increasingly interested in how narrative and a history of marks within the painting occupy a realm that is distinctly visual and not reliant on articulation through language. Marks obtaining movement and presence that question the viewer’s sensation and perception of image’’.

Arbuckle's works attest to the wonders of abandoned structures around Berlin that have inspired him. While exploring the Bärenquell brauerei in Schöneweide, Arbuckle came across stacks of books filled with paper and documents. He collected them on multiple visits, and these pages became grounds for a new series of playful drawings that seek to observe and give presence to the discarded material of abandoned sites.