Matthew Best



http://www.bcaonline.org/visualarts.html

This show will contain the full version of my Suburban Foraging in Public Spaces project. The entire project has never been displayed in one space before. It documents the beginnings of the project in 2006-2007 to 2010. I have never seen the whole thing displayed so I am very excited to see the results!

Pawpaws with Harmonograph, 2007. Colored pencil and harmonograph on paper

Installation detail from "Open Air", Nave Gallery, Somerville MA. August 2009

My first show of 2011,  New Works on Paper, opens Friday, March 4 at Las Manos Gallery in Chicago, IL (http://www.lasmanosgallery.com/). I will have four new drawings in the show.

The other artists in the show are: John Mosher,  Ginny Sykes, Lindsey Clark-Ryan, Ben Rosenburg, Michael McGuire, Eric Garcia, Mark Pease, and Christine Wuenschel.

Some of the work before shipping.

One of the pieces to be included in the show.

January marks my second year in my new, or formerly new studio in Hartford, CT. Below are two details of new drawings, the first pieces new pieces for the new year. They are only details because they aren't quite finished, or at least I'm not sure if they are finished or not. My unofficial New Year's Resolution has been to do larger pieces (the second image is a portion of a 22 by 30 drawing) and to use a wider range of  colors (in this case, green, which I tend to avoid....)

While the transparent qualities of ink have been interesting to explore, I'm starting to incorporate opaque elements into the drawings. You can see this above in the green areas and below in the white lines.

I recently added images of drawings from late 2010 in the works on paper section, they can be seen here: http://mjbest.squarespace.com/works-on-paper/works-on-paper/

As an update, here is an image of one of the finished drawings.

I'm pleased to announce that Las Manos Gallery (http://www.lasmanosgallery.com) in Chicago, IL will be representing my work. I just shipped 5 new drawings to them which will be on display soon. Below are images of three of them. They are part of an ongoing series on ink on paper piece I have been working on. I'm using the transparency of the ink to give a feeling of colorful X-rays, built out of numerous layers of transparent ink.

Untitled, 2010. 19 by 26 inches. ink on paper

Untitled, 2010. 19 by 25 inches. ink and colored pencil on paper