Matthew Bacher
Bio
Matthew Bacher
My most recent work is a collection of paintings that explore the body as a representational problem. The work shifted from painting figures in landscape to focusing on the individual figure during the pandemic lockdown, filling my studio space with painted bodies to replace the physical bodies that had been in his life. What started as loss became a process of reimagining and rethinking the body, working through what a figure can be or how a body can be represented. Bodies are frozen, permanently suspended, and perpetually in the process of escaping their state of sensation and stimulation.
The abstraction and distortions within the work act on our senses (as viewers) but could easily read as nonsense. The paintings are also a recording of a material process. Using both intuition and reflex, I gesturally apply brush strokes until the figure emerges. The canvas edges act as boundaries for the painted subject as well as a boundary for brush strokes. Figures fill the canvas, joining the represented subject and the material object closer together. The pictorial space is determinant of the physical space. This is further explored through the flattening and overlap of background information onto the foreground. The works are records of bodily speed and exuberance made visible through the suspended motion of line and form. Bodies are filled with the energy of competing parts, coming into being in front of the viewer’s vary eyes.
I am a practicing painter that works with themes of the body. I moved to San Diego from New York City and transitioned from doing tattoo art to focusing on painting. In San Diego, I have been deeply inspired by the vast biodiversity and scenery. I have participated in artist residencies at Arts Letters and Numbers and Signal Fire, where I examined the body (specifically mine) in a variety of landscapes, while making paintings, performance and social practice. I am primarily a painter but enjoy an interdisciplinary approach to painting.
Pieces
Number of items found:
6
Artist's Statement
As a visual artist, I employ painting as a means to consider how we as humans experience being in the world. My most recent works involve large-scale oil paintings depicting figures. I employ brush strokes as movements suspended in paint. I see my practice as being rooted in the physical and bodied world which stands in contrast to the virtual worlds that we inhabit.
My figures are trapped in permanent states of sensation and must deal with being stuck in a body. They are distorted in a way that is first felt and then interpreted. Applied fleshy blob shapes hover between recognition and visual noise. Repetition is used to produce a sense of movement and recount the body's temporal histories within a given space. The work is an exploration into how sensation is conveyed visually and how fluid motion can set the tone for how a piece is felt rather than seen.
I use oil paints as my primary material as it stays wet and permeable throughout the painting process. This wetness helps in the process to create fluidity and motion. The permeable surface also allows for blending, smearing and wiping away. Thick applications of paint feel like layers of flesh that take in light in diverse ways. I work on custom-made large-scale canvases, to exact my own physical capacity and reach.