Remembering the Joy of Life
Matthew Hildebrandt
May 24 - June 12
Opening Reception: May 24, 5-7
Matthew Hildebrandt, artist:
"In 1906 Henry Matisse painted The Joy of Life, a painting that participated in opening the doors for what would become the Western Modern Art movement.
That piece was an ode to Cesanne's work The Bathers, and many artists in history have played on the theme of an idyllic age of humanness, where we frolicked naked and free, imbued with an aura of Eden-esque innocence.
...Maybe the whole universe is inside us, and maybe it would be impossible to be anything but this romantic oneness except for the trauma-infused mind's capacity to convince otherwise, and maybe those little birds singing in the tree really are cherubs after all and maybe, just maybe life is, in fact, perfect and maybe that includes you...
And that's a pretty joyful thing to remember.
My work steals unabashedly from artists such as Matisse, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Carr, Morrisseau, Rivera, Hockney, and many of the folk art styles from around the world including but not limited to the stone and wood carvers of the Pacific Northwest, the yarn and bead art of Huichol Mexicans, the Fraktur art of the Pennsylvanian Dutch Mennonites and the stone carvings of the Celtic and Norse."
