Details:
① Artwork:
The Women (Madame Yevonde. Madame Yevonde as Harlequin, 1923–1925)
This painting is part of a series entitled "The Women" based on photographs made by self-identified women. Here, the artist begins with a self-portrait by Madame Yevonde that introduces the idea of doubling or twinning, with the artist serving as both photographer and model. In the image, a costumed Yevonde wears a Harlequin’s suit embellished with a rhombus grid.
Without any clear sign of who today lays claim to the historical trappings of the feminine (the ribbons, powder puffs, boudoirs, assumed fragility, demureness, submissiveness, seductiveness, deception, harlotry, drag), Matt Morris brings these cultural and psychological artifacts to his paintings. In this space, psychoanalyzing takes place via the cosmetic. A ribbon, for instance, carries with it the history of misogyny and frivolity. His navigation of these formal and physical qualities is a method for kickstarting both autobiographical and collective memory work.
Specs:
Painting is made on linen stretched over alupanel with wooden cradle. A set of four cleats is used to install work flush to wall. Thick impasto is present over entire surface of painting with strategic areas of raw linen still visible on surface.
③ Artist:
Matt Morris is an artist, perfumer, and writer who follows Freud’s “reproduction of certain scenes” to engage in processes of recollection and excavation from repressed memory. Artistically, he paints with a melancholy that reflects on the production of liberation ideologies, and his work tracks signifiers with labels like feminine, femme, effeminate, effete, and faggot that pervade the history of art, advertising, fashion, pornography, and other zones of visual culture.
Matt Morris is originally from Southern Louisiana and currently lives in Chicago, IL. He earned his BFA from the Art Academy of Cincinnati in Cincinnati, OH (2007), his MFA in Art Theory + Practice with a certificate in Gender + Sexuality Studies from Northwestern University in Evanston, IL (2013), and his certification in Fairyology from Doreen Virtue, PhD (2017). Morris is currently an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
He has recently presented his art in group and solo shows at Tiger Strikes Asteroid in Brooklyn, NY; Andrew Kreps in New York City, NY; RUSCHMAN in Berlin, Germany; Netwerk Aalst in Aalst, Belgium; Krabbesholm Højskole in Skive, Denmark; and The Suburban in Milwaukee, WI, among others.
As a writer, Morris contributes to Artforum.com, Art Papers, ARTnews, Flash Art, Fragrantica, Sculpture, The Seen, and X-TRA.
This painting is part of a series entitled "The Women" based on photographs made by self-identified women. Here, the artist begins with a self-portrait by Madame Yevonde that introduces the idea of doubling or twinning, with the artist serving as both photographer and model.More
- Unframed
- Signed
