Matt Blackwell: Worry Later
Calypso and Odysseus (2012-2021)
October 13 - December 3, 2022
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Matt Blackwell is a prolific maker and an obsessive chronicler of Americana. His signature style is instantly recognizable for its painterly exuberance, for its wild, unbounded imagination, for the tenderness with which the artist portrays the eccentric cast of characters that animate his narrative (be they animal, vegetable, mineral, or machine), as well as for his apparent and endless fascination for and delight in the myriad absurdities of being — one could say he’s got a nose for it. Blackwell’s work is always hip and often irreverent, but it’s not cynical. The artist’s quirky sense of humor is a key element as well, and the elusiveness of some of the symbolism is part of the fun, adding to the overall sense of improv and immediacy and somehow contributing to the narrative without requiring any literal or granular analysis of their meaning.
Though the 2015 Guggenheim Fellowship recipient’s oeuvre spans a broad range of subjects within the overarching realm of Americana, the “hook” in this loosely-themed exhibition of oil paintings (spanning from 2005 to 2022) is music, which is both a lifelong love and a rich and perennial source of inspiration for Blackwell’s storyscapes. All of the titles of these paintings either: 1) directly reference a song title or lyric (Whiskey River, and Lonesome Devil, as just two examples); 2) portray a musical icon (Lucinda); 3) reference the making of music directly (More Banjo); or 4) indirectly (Pan & Flora, given that Pan is equally known for his musical chops and his voracious libido). Some titles do double-duty as both literary allusion and musical references (Ophelia is, of course, the tragic hero’s doomed love interest in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, but the name also conjures the titular character/elusive muse in popular tunes by The Band and, more recently, The Lumineers).
“Worry Later” is the title of a Thelonious Monk jazz composition. It starts out in a comic vein clattering towards something and then hits the pavement with a straightforward forcefulness that is all business. I admire this in Monk--both the humor and the rigor.
Monk says there are no wrong notes in music. Miles Davis reiterates this by saying that if there is a misstep than the note that follows it is what is most important. The West Coast painter Richard Diebenkorn says a mistake is only an opportunity to push off of. This reliance on process and detour allow for innovation and spontaneity, keys to engagement in creative work.
My paintings sometimes have a clear narrative, but quite often it is the process that yields the most interesting images. I often start paintings with abstract shapes, establishing some kind of ground or location. When I approach work as literal illustration I usually get bored, but sometimes that’s a refreshing angle. “Well, I’m scufflin’ and I’m shufflin’. And I’m walkin’ on briars. I’m not even acquainted with my own desires” (Bob Dylan). Getting lost means finding your way towards something. I like my process to take me places I haven’t been before. Habit has to be engaged and grudgingly acknowledged to get there, but often the boredom and tedium of process has to be endured. That’s why many of these paintings have happened over years. I need time and perspective to find new angles on them.
In “Worry Later” there is a black candle burning. I put it in the painting as a tribute to the great reggae legend Lee Perry’s song of the same name. Monk and Perry: Natural Mystics. Music guides me. I don’t illustrate it. The visual world of observation, movies, and even T.V. also move me. I love “The Rockford Files” and its views of mid-2oth century Los Angeles. I am also inspired by the books of Russell Banks, Annie Proulx, and Cormac McCarthy.
I like all musical genres but in particular early 1920’s recordings of jazz, blues, and hillbilly music like those in Harry Smith’s “Anthology of Folk Music”. Greil Marcus chronicles this music in his book Invisible Republic in what he calls the old weird America where everyone was making recordings and putting out records until the Great Depression. So many odd voices. Bob Dylan introduced the members of the band to this music and it brought forth the “Basement Tapes” and “Music From Big Pink”. These are Old and New Testaments for me, a wellspring.
I grew up in western New York State, a haunted region for sure. I moved to Portland, Maine in 1973 to attend art school at the Portland School of Art. I stayed until 1988, painting mostly landscapes while living on Monhegan Island and the small town of Pownal. I have also made many journeys to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where my family relocated, in the last fifteen years. All these places figure strongly in my work as I seem to have internalized them. It is not hard for me to conjure these vague regions.
The cast of characters in these works are primarily made up but sketches, drawings and photos help me as well. I love the stagecraft of Max Beckmann as well as the strange narratives and sometimes sinister and erotic elements. It seems he lived truly in the moment of his time and the rise of Fascism in Germany. His work is sort of coded often with a state of menace. The work remains enigmatic even after many viewings.
I am also drawn to the painted eloquence and rigor of Diebenkorn and Henri Matisse. Philip Guston, and David Park also move me. I love German Expressionist painting, both modern (my door into painting in high school) and contemporary (the irreverence and horror in it, dealing with the horror of post-war Germany). There is a healthy irreverence and provocative narrative in the work that is especially useful in these times.
I will name-drop painters I love: Diebenkorn, Park, Elmer Bishoff, Joan Brown-- all West Coast painters who embrace and reject history-- Guston, Marsden Hartley, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Maria Lassnig, Judith Linhares, Amy Sillman, and Nicole Eisenman. The list is too long. When I see good work it influences me in ways that surprise me, like a revelation.
I like work that is ambiguous in its narrative. Some mystery is good in painting. It asks for continued observation and deciphered meanings. We see this in Guston’s late work. It is also how nuance in a song can be discovered after multiple listenings.
I hope that my paintings offer possibilities to their viewing, both in their formal aspects and in their narratives. I hope they are sustaining to the viewer in their questions.
~ Matt Blackwell
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