Aeqai
In the early part of last
century abstraction began considering something as simple as the power of
multiple intersecting lines. The clarity of the grid evolved to become, in Rosalind Krauss’
words, “modern art’s will to silence, its hostility to literature, to
narrative, to discourse.” Matthew Kolodziej’s paintings begin at this point in
more ways than just the literal. But Kolodziej’s motivations are different from
the meditative “will to silence” of, say, Agnes Martin. His grids, the
fundament of his work but also the least apparent in the finished piece, create
a tension between context, representation, abstraction, and history.
Kolodziej begins by
projecting grid-esque manipulated photographs of rust-belt construction and
demolition sights, and then traces the projected image onto canvas. Belying
what seems like a technical process, the traced lines are loose and
calligraphic, more in the style of Marden’s Cold Mountainpaintings
than the cold precision of Sol Lewitt’s gridded wall drawings. Kolodziej then
begins to, depending on how one looks at it, either obscure the traced grid
with delicately applied globs, crusts and patches of
paint, or fill in the grid with fragments of architectural detail. This tension
in seeing, in how one reads these gestural patches, is
the often-explored tension between abstraction and representation.
For Kolodziej,
“architectural sites in flux provide the foundations for these paintings.”
Critics have correctly observed that Kolodziej’s paintings are reminders of the
decay and wreckage of our cities and, I would add, perhaps our humanity. Artist
Joe Fyfe wrote of Kolodziej’s paintings: “It’s as if we were staring into a
sump containing the physical evidence of recent tsunami, military action and
terrorist attacks.” This all sounds pessimistic. But it has also been correctly
observed that something in these paintings is uplifting; what Doug Utter called
a “sense of giddy freedom.” In Oculus, patches
of thickly applied paint culminate around a bright, vaguely round center. This
center is the oculthat, like in architecture, provides a sense of elevation and
symbolic relation to the heavens, or whatever you may choose to call it. Amidst
Kolodziej’s wreckage is optimism in teleological sense.
‘Oculus”, 2015 acrylic on canvas, 49”x42”. Courtesy of Carl
Solway Gallery and the artist.
We’ve been taught to be
deeply suspicious of teleologies. In simplistic terms, art has spent the better
part of 30 years reacting against modernism’s grand narratives. Kolodziej’s
work is simultaneously part of that reaction and, more importantly, questions
its efficacy. For Hegel, a champion of teleological thinking, art was the
presentation of the idea in sensuous form. In each of the paintings in Patch Work,Kolodziej presents (and
unites) his ideas concerning the wreckage of contemporary artificiality and
consumerism with sensuous paint handling and graceful composition. This sounds
formalist, but Kolodziej must invoke (without succumbing to) formalism, using
modernist emblems like the grid, in order to raise these important issues. He
does so elegantly, with the appropriate amount of deference to the history of
abstraction (one cannot paint this way without being historically conscientous)
and postmodern detachment.
“Shanty”, 2015, acrylic on canvas, 72”x79”. Courtesy of Carl
Solway Gallery and the artist.
–Matthew Metzger is an
artist and designer based in Cincinnati. His paintings are represented locally
by Miller Gallery, and his furniture by Voltage, as well as other galleries and
design showrooms nationally. His website is www.metzgerfinearts.com.
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