Ampersand is pleased to present If You Ain't a Reflection, You're a Wave, a solo exhibition of paintings and works on paper by Brooklyn-based artist Matthew Fisher. As the show title indicates, the work sets up two simple extremes, waves and reflections, a singular focus with origins in 2011 when Fisher first started painting grass shapes set against an ocean horizon line. "Existing in a state between frozen and movement," writes the artist, "natural and artificial, cliché and personal, these paintings strive for a universal, while at the same time personal narrative." Three narrow, mid-scaled paintings show elongated cloud forms hovering above bodies of water. We see no trace of land or life. "The clouds, stagnant in their grace, marked only by their reflections in passing water, remind us that nature is always more beautiful than the man made, even when," adds Fisher, "that nature is constructed out of our expectations of what is natural." This dichotomy between perceived natural environments and those that exist in our mind continues in his ongoing exploration of the wave motif. These smaller works ask the viewer to be lost at sea. With a horizon line covered by towering waves, our sense of balance is twisted by the implication of turbulent water, as though Fisher is asking why are we here? Where are we going? Why? "Transported to the middle of the sea, we are reminded that the world moves on with or without us." Despite the implication of sea spray and forceful lines, the movement of each wave is frozen, much like our personal memories of the ocean and the symbolic sway it holds over our collective imagination. "These memories," Fisher notes, "witnessed from life, played out over and over, are transformed into smoothed over clichés of what were once deeply personal experiences. Yet they remain mental postcards of where we've been. Where we all have been. And where we all can go if we think back to that moment."

Matthew Fisher lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. His work has been shown widely in several group and solo exhibitions. Recent solo exhibitions include Lsot Time (2010) at Heskin Contemporary, New York and Asea, Aloof (2012) at Mulherin + Pollard Projects, New York. His work is held in several private and public collections. This is his first exhibition with the gallery.

Please send an email request (here) for a complete price list for the show.

Press:
Huffington Post Interview

Blue, Blue, Blue, 2013
Acrylic on canvas
25 x 16 in.
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