Chaotic Salvation - ecoDECO
We love us us some reclaimed genius... and have been long admirers of Toronto-based Artist Matt Durant who combining the chaotic lines of urban culture with distressed organic materials is arousing a new perspective on the environment around us.
His dynamic, interdisciplinary style draws from music, sculpture and action painting. Years of work as a horticulturalist influences his choice of materials, which favour salvaged wood and found objects that would have otherwise been discarded - in utilizing so-called 'refuse', Durant probes ecological themes while drawing inspiration from the timeworn character of a derelict picnic table or a second-hand film gels book.
- " I like to honor whats already there, to glorify it." says the Artist.
An OCAD '01 graduate, Durant studied an array of medium, his later years focusing woodworking, video, and audio sculpture. This training would later come to inform his painting; his energetic op-art patterns resemble a tangle of furiously oscillating sinusoidal waves.
Starting from the natural grain, knots and crags of wood, Durant builds a richly textured surface. He applies his own stains and diluted paints—both oil and acrylic—to fibrous wood slabs in energetic, gestural strokes. Hands, brushes, palette knives and found objects are the vehicles in the drip-and-splatter technique, which relies on both conscious direction and happy accident. This Abstract Expressionist foundation is punctuated with a hard, graphic line, applied with a unique squirting technique. The resulting silhouettes, often reminiscent of urban skylines, resemble stylized graffiti. The contrast between this bold stencil and the underlying wood grain suggests themes of urban sprawl and deforestation, decay and nostalgia.
Recently a part of the Riverdale art walk. Matt's artwork can currently be spotted at the Rouge Concept Gallery, various fitting locales across the city including our first taste of him- at Lady Marmalade- his installation there (from series 2 of his collection of works) was a colourful revelation. Also check him out @ BLVD on Queen west.
madlovetoourlocaltalent.
www.mattdurant.com
®copyright 2010 Ecocentric Guide all rights reserved
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