Embodied by Adelaide Matthews

Artist Statement-

I’ve always been interested in our perception of others, especially in first impressions. Basic interaction is built upon the first thing you see–someone’s face. In a city like New York, it’s especially easy to forget how often we see someone new. In my work I wanted to explore the human form, and how slight distortions can change our initial perception. Sometimes, small shifts to an image allow us to see people in a completely new light. All of my pieces display a human form. I hope that each form creates visual interest and draws a viewer in more than a “normal” portrait might. To achieve a more unsettling effect for some of my works, instead of looking at the canvas, I only looked at the subject while sketching, or sometimes took a close-up of my subject using a wide-angle lens, creating an image where the subject is still discernible, but a little warped. With my work, I hope to convey an interesting mix of faces and bodies that spark curiosity and scrutiny.

Curatorial Statement–

Adelaide takes different approaches, testing her drawing and painting skills, especially in terms of scale. Amongst her favorite artists, she loves the work of the painter Alice Neel as well as Henry Taylor, and the connections are apparent though not overt.

In the group of works shown here at the The Wall there is one small sculpture, in fact the only three-dimensional work that the artist has made so far. It consists of a slightly larger than life-size hand quite realistically worked in a clay material. The hand holds a bright yellow pencil, the real object, familiar to many from the schoolroom or the workshop, atop the pencil is a much smaller head, different in scale and rather like a mask or doll’s head. The face looks past us, yet we can almost feel that we are holding the pencil in our own hand. It is an enigmatic object, both realistic and not, that references the activities of drawing and of looking, both of which Adelaide explores with great energy in all the work shown here.

-Deirdre O’ Connell, Director of Exhibition Service, Dietl International Service