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11/1/2008

Matthew Heller

DCA Fine Art, Santa Monica

DCA Fine Art is pleased to announce Everything is a Love Story, a solo exhibition featuring the work of Los Angeles based artist Matthew Heller. Everything is a Love Story debuts Saturday, January 12, 2008 with an artist reception from 6pm-9pm, and continues through February 25, 2008.

Having recently burst on to the national scene, Matthew Heller employs painting, drawing, and text to comment on life and emotional connectivity. His work is fresh and immediate in its depiction of relationships and inspired observation of pop culture. Gallery owner and Everything is a Love Story curator Delia Cabral remarks, “Matthew Heller’s work draws upon spontaneous color and emotional energy that people respond to in a very intuitive way.”

In Everything is a Love Story, Heller’s canvases depict linear narratives. As he puts it, the pieces “suggest narratives that easily allow the viewer to awaken narratives inside of them.” His choice of simple figurative forms encourages this process, allowing people to intimately connect the art and the artist with their own lives.

Heller’s story telling is abetted by bold color and linework as well as the technique of “deletion.” In many places, deleted figures and text lead viewers on an emotional journey where the veiled back story is as powerful as what is revealed upon first glance

Heller’s drive to create is fueled by passionate inquest, honest expression, and his own relationship narratives. “Heller invites us to look at the world in a totally life-affirming way. Emotional and physical elements such as love, light, sun, rain, humor all conspire to reflect the beauty around us,” says Cabral.

Not all is sanguine, however. In Everything is a Love Story, “Heller deals with the whole gamut – broken promises, inequality, insecurity in addition to all the good stuff,” says Cabral, “but what holds true is that he approaches his subjects (i.e. humanity) with an unfailing sense of awe, admiration, and love.”

While each piece is a complete statement, “what makes Everything is a Love Story so intriguing” adds Cabral, “is the tendency for the stories and themes to flow into each other – from one canvas to another.” The Test pieces are good examples. The tongue-in-cheek This is a Test is pointed enough on its own, but its import takes a decidedly different turn when viewed alongside its corollary, This is not a Test.

In his popular Poems and Homage to Music series, Heller writes out the full text of the subject’s lyrics in gray block lettering. Whether a self-penned poem or a kitschy 80s power ballad, the effect is startling. “With song lyrics, he rescues what can be an embarrassing cultural relic and transforms it into something inspired and current,” says Cabral. “With his poems, he rescues us from our own cynicism,” she adds. Cabral concludes, “Heller can take us at our most vulnerable and use the moment as a sincere declaration of how beautiful we are. Such skillful twists of personal and artistic generosity are what makes his work so satisfying and sublime.”

Everything is a Love Story opens at DCA Fine Art in Santa Monica, California on Saturday January 12, 2008 and continues through February 25, 2008. The gallery exhibition hours are Tuesday through Sunday 11am-5pm or by appointment.

Matthew Heller graduated from U.C. Santa Barbara with honors in Art and Art History. In addition to solo exhibitions on both coasts, his work has been featured in several publications including a recent portrayal in In Style magazine. In 2006, Heller was asked to participate SFMOMA’s 16th Biennial Auction. He currently works and resides in Los Angeles, CA with his fiance, actress Annie Dudek.

Opening Saturday, January 12, 2008

DCA Fine Art
3107 Pico Blvd, Santa Monica USA
Free admission

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