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14/4/2007

Two exhibitions

DCA Fine Art, Santa Monica

Matthew Heller and Dalit Tayar

A rising star on the national scene, Matthew Heller employs painting, drawing and text to comment on life and interpersonal connectivity. His work is fresh and immediate in its honest depiction of relationships and inspired observation of pop culture. Masterful use of bold color and lines is often juxtaposed by his use of “deletion” as a key technique. In many pieces, deleted figures lead viewers on an emotional journey where the veiled back story is as powerful as what is revealed upon first glance.

By his own declaration, passion and honesty motivate Heller's drive to create. His figurative work embodies these virtues. As they reward the viewer with one wry observation after another, they illuminate various aspects of social interaction with a force and clarity rarely seen. What’s more, his choice of deceptively simple forms encourages people to imprint their own experiences on the canvas, enabling them to intimately connect the art and the artist with their own lives.

True to his word, Heller never pulls his punches. Yet whether chronicling broken promises, unequal relationships, or heroic action, he approaches his subjects (i.e. humanity) with an overall sense of awe, admiration, and love.

On one gigantic canvas, Heller writes out what appears to be a romantic poem in typical gray block lettering. Unbeknownst to the viewer, it is in fact the entire lyrical text of an 80s power ballad, repeat choruses and all. The effect is startling. In one fell swoop, he rescues an embarrassing kitsch relic and transforms it into something moving, inspired, and dare we say – cool. Heller may be the only living artist who can take us at our tackiest and most insipid and use the moment as a sincere affirmation of how beautiful we are. Such deft twists of personal and artistic generosity is what makes Heller's work so delicious and so sublime. Truly, this is an artist who gets it.

Dalit Tayar explores the human figure in relation to space and architecture through her use of sculptural ceramic media. Her work evokes the spiritual and physical structures that protect and enclose us. In abstract pieces, she combines playful interaction with architecture and geology. Through it all, the work reflects her identity and struggle as an Israeli artist – a quintessentially Middle-Eastern brew that is somehow raw, painful, and alienated, even as it is sensual and breathtakingly vulnerable.

Delicate, porcelain figures emerge or lie within large stoneware slabs, lending the work an archeological feel. The juxtaposition of the figures and their enclosures suggests powerful and often paradoxical themes that poignantly describe the human condition. For instance, Tayar expresses the comfort found in being protected and concealed, yet also depicts a world of confinement where the individual yearns for liberation. That such an intricate excavation of the human spirit can take place all within one of Tayar’s pieces is indeed a testament to her artistic prowess.

Image: Mathew Heller, Bleed Heart 23

DCA Fine Art
3107 Pico Blvd. - Santa Monica

stampa

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