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Matt Relkin makes a Big Bang at Beep Beep
June 9, 2010 at 10:27 am by Wyatt Williams in Visual Arts
"THE BIG BANG" acrylic on panel. 16"x18"
Matt Relkin’s clean, geometric paintings have been trying to cope with the events of September 11 for years now. For a solo show at Young Blood Gallery last year, Relkin’s work reinterpreted the unmistakable image of that long, many-windowed tower into a number of unexpected scenes: bursting rainbows, dripping droplets of blood, and sprouting trees. Since then, the recognizable image of the tower has been replaced by a more ambiguous black obelisk.
“Eventually my buildings became more anonymous, & finally the Black Tower began appearing as a surrogate for all those horrific details that still reside in our collective memory. I very rarely see any calculated references to 9/11 in my paintings now, as the Black Tower & the other black objects I paint have become more symbolic of a general feeling of unease, that something isn’t right in the world,” he explained in an interview with Fecal Face.
Relkin’s latest body of work focuses on a mythos that he’s developed around the idea of this Black Tower, though it seems to have taken a somewhat more hopeful angle. In the artist statement for this show, Relkin says, “Some of these new paintings depict changes to our own planet’s environment as a direct result of the appearance of the Black Towers. Others offer rare sightings of cosmic phenomena related to the Ancients & their means of travel. The Big Bang depicts the birth of our known universe, exploding in color & shape, meant to be a reminder of the beauty of creation, which stands in complete contrast to everything the Black Towers represent. I paint each new piece with the hope of creating something beautiful, something that can evoke deep feelings of being human, of existing in a world that is perilously endangered, a world that is being swallowed by the lengthening shadow of the Black Tower.”
The Big Bang featuring work by Matt Relkin opens at 8 pm on July 12th at Beep Beep Gallery.