Winston Wächter Fine Art, New York is pleased to announce Feeling Color, an exhibition of light sculptures by Los Angeles based artist, Matt Gagnon. This is the artist’s first solo exhibition with the New York gallery. Trained as an architect, Gagnon is deeply interested in the physicality of materials and their ability to conjure feelings along with memories. These works dig to unearth emotional frequencies of color, material, and texture by combining glass, metal, stone, wood, and concrete. The transformative light of the pieces, built by elements of surface and tone, invite the viewer into their glow.
Matt Gagnon has been creating variations of light forms for decades. His series, Stacks, is inspired by half lit skyscrapers at night that exposed the life inside and allow imagined narratives to be constructed. To create these striking towers, Gagnon layers bands of materials that vary in opacity, seeking moments where they harmonize. The exterior expression of each stack is dependent on the amount of ambient light present. A dark room will display the opaque pieces in the stack as a silhouette against the glow of the translucent pieces. The daytime neutralizes the interior lights and elevates the exterior color and texture. Ultimately, creating a dynamic experience for the viewer.
Continuing on the artist’s interest in challenging the boundaries between interior and exterior, this exhibition debuts Gagnon’s new sculptural works titled, Volcanoes. These pieces explore notions of interiority. Is it safety, warmth and comfort or the unseen, unknowable and hidden away? They are vessels filled with potential, suggesting a notion of mystery and wonder. The rock-like exteriors are filled with a deep saturated light meant to be a visual offering; a moment for contemplation and reflection.
While the practice of architecture is often based on meticulous planning and problem solving, Matt Gagnon works intuitively to put together different material and textures to show the subtle ways that the built environment shapes our lives. Burnt orange may evoke desert landscapes or home interiors of the 1960s, concrete may feel chic and modern or brutalist and industrial. The layered works feel like volcanic core samples, extracted for study from a particular place and time.
Matt Gagnon studied architecture at Cornell University then worked for Gaetano Pesce and Frank Gehry. In 2002 Matt started his own studio in Brooklyn, NY to pursue design and making at all scales. Over the years, Matt has taught design at Otis College of Art and Parsons School of Constructed Environments. He has been invited to speak at Savannah College of Art and Design, Cornell University, Woodbury School of Architecture, City College of New York and University of Central Oklahoma. His work has been featured in publications such as The New York Times, Metropolis, AD Magazine, Surface and Interior Design and has been exhibited internationally. In 2010, Matt moved the studio to Los Angeles.
