Spotlight Artist

Mathew Woodward

Midwest
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Featured in New American Paintings

Artist Statement

77th Street is from a body of work called On Having Left You.

It investigates the cycle of loss and revival that is very much a part of a given place, particularly the American city and its obsessive attempts to rebuke and abandon its history. The push and pull of deconstruction and reconstruction, which shapes the experience of space as we come to remember it and forget again, is consciously mirrored by my use of reductive drawing.

Viewed together successively, the works included here form an impression of time. As representational objects, also, they are tangible and therefore form an expression of space. Taken in their original context, as public monuments or symbols of affluence, they represent a specific space and time and cultural value system. Deliberately removed from their historical context, they are presented so as to call into question their place in any particular index of ideas. This kind of displacement presupposes their roles anew as confrontational monuments to grief and love, to the endless dream of loss and recovery.

Artist's Additional works

Works shared by the artist outside of their featured New American Paintings selections

Featured artwork
Featured artwork

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