Tales from Cicely
Matthew Chambers
May 7 - June 25, 2023
Brackett Creek Exhibitions, DUMBO, New York
Presented with Marinaro Gallery
CV/Bio
Press Release
You Need Jokes To Keep Your Morale Up. And I Told The Dirtiest Joke I Could Think Of To Also Keep Our Sexuality Up, 2022-2023oil, acrylic, enamel, latex and India ink on canvas
96 x 48 ″
If You Can't Handle A Horse Without Spurs You Don't Have Any Business Riding with Them, 2022-2023oil, acrylic, chalk, enamel, and India ink on canvas
96 x 48 ″
First to Clock In Last to Clock Out, 2023oil, acrylic and India ink on canvas
96 x 48″
I Would Never Eat That After Watching All These People Get Sick, 2022-2023oil, acrylic, enamel and India ink on canvas
96 x 48 ″
Sometimes Its Actually Better To Tell A Lie Instead Of The Truth, and Do You Know Why I'm Telling You This? Its Because Youre So Smart and Pretty, 2022-2023Oil, acrylic, latex, enamel and India ink on canvas
96 x 48 ″
if you left it open, the landscape would grow right through the front door, 2023Oil acrylic enamel latex nylon fiber on canvas
96 x 48 ″
To Feel Like You Have A Guardian Angel Because People Look Over Your Shoulder When You Talk (Monster and Squish), 2023Oil, acrylic, latex, enamel and India ink on canvas
96 x 48 ″
Jake the cowdog coming to visit his best friend Don Ralphie on a winter morning, 2023oil, acrylic and India ink on canvas
96 x 48 ″
I wasn't lost, I just didn't know where I was for a few weeks, 2022-2023acrylic, enamel and India Ink
96 x 48 ″
I looked at life a lot more than I lived it, 2022-2023oil, acrylic and India ink on canvas
96 x 48 ″
Now I Have to Understand How The Place Possesses Me, 2023oil, acrylic and India ink on canvas
96 x 48 ″
An Implied Journey, 2023Oil and acrylic on canvas
96 x 48″
Giant Ants In Giant Pants, 2022-2023Oil acrylic latex enamel and India ink on canvas
96 x 48 ″
Maybe I Shouldn't Have Encouraged Him To Give It A Try, But He Looked Like A Stronger Swimmer Than He Turned Out To Be, People Can Fool You., 2022-2023oil, acrylic, enamel and India ink on canvas
96 x 48 ″
My Nose Is Growing Old, 2021-2023acrylic, latex, oil, enamel, India ink on canvas
96 x 48″
It was that, or go back to life on shore, 2022-2023oil, acrylic and latex on canvas
96 x 48 ″
Both Humbled By and Imperious With Them, 2021-2023
oil, acrylic, latex and enamel
84 x 60 ″; Framed: 85 x 61 ″
An Angel Counting Money, 2021-2023oil, acrylic, latex and enamel
84 x 60 ″; Framed: 85 x 61 ″
He Laughed As The Guard Took Him Away, 2021-2023oil, acrylic, latex and enamel84 x 60 ″; Framed: 85 x 61 ″
Being Held To What Is Present., 2021-2023oil, acrylic, latex and enamel
84 x 60 ″; Framed: 85 x 61 “
Brackett Creek and Marinaro are pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings by Matthew Chambers.
The exhibition title, Tales from Cicely, references Chambers’ favorite TV show, Northern Exposure (1990-1995). In Season 6, Episode 18, “Little Italy” (not the artist’s favorite episode of the series), local store proprietor, Ruth-Anne Miller, causes a stir when she gets one of her stories of local life in Cicely, Alaska played on-air during NPR’s All Things Considered. Her story is of when Local Cicely DJ and Artist, Chris Stevens, made an art performance of catapulting a piano with a trebuchet (a Medieval catapult). After the story airs, Ruth-Anne is struggling to write her next piece because too many people in the town are vying for attention with their own story-worthy talents and eclectic personalities.
The oldest works in the exhibition, four 5’ x 7’ ripped paintings, come from a formal painting language that Chambers developed while living and working in Los Angeles. In the “Jazz Club” paintings, ripped strips of canvas were arranged and flocked to look like the acoustic panels of cinemas and jazz clubs. After six years in Montana, Chambers has replaced the soft textures and dark colors with the aesthetic of sheep shacks, loafing sheds, and roughly made but highly functional buildings weathered and altered by necessity. The sixteen 4’ x 8’ paintings continue Chambers’ explorations at this scale, a size the artist has primarily been working in since 2006. This most recent batch of paintings were made unstretched on the floor and were primarily thought of as drawings, allowing the artist to sift through experience and thoughts with less preciousness.
Matthew Chambers was born in Boise, ID in 1982. Solo exhibitions include shows at UNTITLED, New York; Zabludowicz Collection, London; Rental, New York; Angstrom Gallery, Los Angeles; PrazDelavallade, Los Angeles; Zach Feuer Gallery, New York and Feuer/Mesler, New York. He has been included in group exhibitions including the Saatchi Gallery, London; Hezi Cohen Gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel; Marlborough, Madrid, Spain; Brand New Gallery, Milan, Italy; and The Rubell Family Collection, Miami, FL. Chambers lives and works in Bozeman, MT.
The exhibition title, Tales from Cicely, references Chambers’ favorite TV show, Northern Exposure (1990-1995). In Season 6, Episode 18, “Little Italy” (not the artist’s favorite episode of the series), local store proprietor, Ruth-Anne Miller, causes a stir when she gets one of her stories of local life in Cicely, Alaska played on-air during NPR’s All Things Considered. Her story is of when Local Cicely DJ and Artist, Chris Stevens, made an art performance of catapulting a piano with a trebuchet (a Medieval catapult). After the story airs, Ruth-Anne is struggling to write her next piece because too many people in the town are vying for attention with their own story-worthy talents and eclectic personalities.
The oldest works in the exhibition, four 5’ x 7’ ripped paintings, come from a formal painting language that Chambers developed while living and working in Los Angeles. In the “Jazz Club” paintings, ripped strips of canvas were arranged and flocked to look like the acoustic panels of cinemas and jazz clubs. After six years in Montana, Chambers has replaced the soft textures and dark colors with the aesthetic of sheep shacks, loafing sheds, and roughly made but highly functional buildings weathered and altered by necessity. The sixteen 4’ x 8’ paintings continue Chambers’ explorations at this scale, a size the artist has primarily been working in since 2006. This most recent batch of paintings were made unstretched on the floor and were primarily thought of as drawings, allowing the artist to sift through experience and thoughts with less preciousness.
Matthew Chambers was born in Boise, ID in 1982. Solo exhibitions include shows at UNTITLED, New York; Zabludowicz Collection, London; Rental, New York; Angstrom Gallery, Los Angeles; PrazDelavallade, Los Angeles; Zach Feuer Gallery, New York and Feuer/Mesler, New York. He has been included in group exhibitions including the Saatchi Gallery, London; Hezi Cohen Gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel; Marlborough, Madrid, Spain; Brand New Gallery, Milan, Italy; and The Rubell Family Collection, Miami, FL. Chambers lives and works in Bozeman, MT.