New York-based artist Matthew Craven’s work embraces historiographical discrepancies by mixing archaeological remains with images from lost cultures. His crypto-historical collages and drawings highlight a new connection to our past through a unique aesthetic. In Valley, Craven creates a colorful and vibrant backdrop with Mesoamerican-like patterns akin to 20th Century art movements such as Op Art or Geometric Abstraction. He then collages found pages of what may be an Olmec colossal head and a page with a black rectangle analogous to Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square, making a lively, yet abstruse, connection between ancient Mesoamerican civilizations and avant-garde European art.
Matthew Craven
VALLEY
2013
ink, graphite, and found book pages on found paper
51 1/4 x 37 3/4 inches