Matthew Chambers

ART PEPPER

2017
acrylic, enamel-based adhesive, and nylon and rayon fibers on canvas in artist’s maple frame
41 1/4 x 35 1/4 x 2 inches

For a number of years, Matthew Chambers has been cutting unsuccessful painting into strips of canvas and recomposing them into new works. In this recent piece, the strips of fabric are still present, but their use as fragments of past works is now gone. Instead, a radiating relief made of the spiraling fabric scraps is covered, and thereby unified, with a velvety coating of scarlet red flocking. The composition harkens back to other modernist, gestural work, but here the energy of the gesture is conveyed through the scraggily torn edges. Matthew Chambers lives and works in Los Angeles, and his work has been shown throughout the US.