12/6: THICK SLICE, DECADENT RATION // new works by MATTHEW KAYHOE BRETT and JI SOO HONG

THICK SLICE, DECADENT RATION

new works by MATTHEW KAYHOE BRETT & JI SOO HONG

December 6-27, 2014

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Opening Reception: Saturday, Dec. 6, 6-9 PM

Open Hours: Saturdays 12-5 PM or by appointment

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slow

2153 West 21st Street

Processed meat conjures horrors and cat food. Ji Soo Hong reminds us that it can also be something else. Charcuterie can be coveted. She works as a cheesemonger, so her point of view is close to a thing that is often less familiar and polarizing. Her view complicates, resides in spaces at neither end of the spectrum. Her images are built on the connection between revulsion and desire. Not oscillation, but somewhere inside the in between. Beautiful and a little gross. Lusted after and laden with guilt.

Matthew Kayhoe Brett is interested in practical processes folks have used forlonger than records have been kept. He has to act out each process in order to put it in context. He repeats old ways of doing things, but does so to situate that process to reveal what is adjacent. He then goes on to explore the structure that connects things we may not even realize are adjacent. Matt renders conjunctions. He ends up having us look at things that feel like we’re not looking at things. We’re looking at history, at science, at things that move ideas and unseen particles. Conjunctions have a way of hiding because the pieces they glue together tend to be larger than the glue.

Both artists harness tools that remove emphasis on the hand of the artist. Ji Soo cuts color shapes then collages them back together in a manner that resembles drawing. Matt casts and isolates. His editing eye generates a style that appears to be found rather than made. It is an illusion just as apparent as the less-than-precise marks left by Ji Soo’s cuts. It is probably better to say that the mark-making tools Matt and JiSoo use are indirect, and so their marks hide in plain sight much like their respective subject matter.

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More information about Matthew Kayhoe Brett can be found at mattkayhoebrett.com.

More information about Ji Soo Hong can be found at jisoo-hong.com.