Matthew Brandt - Lakes and Reservoirs, Trees, Honeybees, Taste Tests in Color

Fotografije pejzaža distorzirane samim pejzažom.
Slike su prožete materijalom koji je na njima prikazan (ako se prikazuje jezero, onda je slika bila umočena u vodu tog jezera; pigment za izradu slike pravi se od stabla ili košnice koji su naslikani; fotografija prijatelja Georgea premazana je njegovom bljuvotinom...)

www.matthewbrandt.com/

los angeles-based artist matthew brandt has created several new photograph and printed works for two of his ongoing series 'lakes and reservoirs' and 'taste tests in color'. though his body of work features several pieces very classical in composition, drawing their forms from landscape photography of the american west, brandt's unique artistic approach includes the incorporation of physical elements of the subject of the artwork itself or varied alternative media in each finished piece. the artist has developed a hybrid printmaking technique which combines both a revival of antiquated production methods but also an approach to post-production manipulation that is entirely of his own devising. 

the images of the 'lakes and reservoirs' each feature a body of water in the foreground, found by the artist in the western united states. the likeliness of the lake is first captured through traditional photographic methods, then altered after being made a c-print. the artist soaks the photograph in the water collected from the subject of the work of art for weeks or months as the lakes or reservoirs pictured then physically become a part of their still image. the chemical composition of each body of water informs the color and visibility of the subject question.

'taste tests in color' is a fresh actualization of brandt's existing monochromatic series taste tests in which the artist silk screened picturesque american landscapes by using a food item in place of traditional ink such as ketchup or mole sauce. in this particular 'taste test', the artist recreates the image of vernal falls of yosemite national park into several multi-layered prints made permanent by food or household objects such as toothpaste, kool-aid, airhead candies, or pharmecutical pills, recreating the colors typically observed in CMYK or RGB color models.  












- www.designboom.com/

 

Photographs of painterly landscapes soaked in lake and reservoir water

by Alison Zavos

Matthew Brandt was born in Los Angeles in 1982. His father is a California-based advertising photographer and his mother is an emigrant from Hong Kong. He worked with his father as a photo-assistant in his early adolescence. As a young man, Brandt briefly abandoned photography turning to painting. While studying at Cooper Union in New York he fully embraced photography as his medium of choice. Following college, Brandt worked for two years for architectural photographer Robert Polidori. In 2008 he returned to Los Angeles to complete his M.F.A in photography at the University of California, Los Angeles. There he rekindled his passion for the hands-on processes of the darkroom. His first solo exhibition was held the following year at Cardwell Jimmerson Gallery, Los Angeles. This work is from his ‘Lakes and Reservoirs’ series in which ‘color photographs are soaked in the specific lake or reservoir water that they represent’.

Thursday, May 24, 6:00–8:00 pm

Yossi Milo Gallery is pleased to announce Lakes, Trees and Honeybees, an exhibition of new photographs and prints by Matthew Brandt from his series Lakes and Reservoirs, Trees, Honeybees and Taste Tests in Color. The exhibition will open on Thursday, May 24, and will be on view through Friday, July 20, with a reception for the artist on Thursday, May 24, from 6:00 - 8:00PM. This will be Matthew Brandt’s first exhibition with the gallery and his first solo exhibition in New York.
Matthew Brandt creates his prints using physical elements from the subject itself. Inspired by landscape photography of the American West – especially its correlation to the methods of printing and making images during photography’s infancy in the mid-nineteenth century – the artist revives traditional photographic techniques through various production processes, including handmade papermaking and gum-bichromate. Whether soaking prints in water from the subject lake, or printing on paper that the artist made from the subject tree, or even using a pigment that the artist created from the subject (charcoal from the trees, gum-bichromate emulsion of honeybees), Brandt blurs the line between the photograph and the photographed.
For his series Lakes and Reservoirs, Brandt photographs lakes and reservoirs in the western United States, and then submerges each resulting C-print in water collected from the subject of the photograph. Prints are soaked for days or weeks or even months, and this process impacts the layers of color that comprise the image.  Brandt removes the print once it reaches its desired look, which can range from mostly representational to completely abstract. The Lakes and Reservoirs series considers the current condition not only of our lakes and reservoirs, but also of traditional color photography.
Brandt photographed his series Trees in George Bush Park near Houston, Texas. The artist photographed and gathered branches from fifty trees he found in a grassy valley in the park. Back in his Los Angeles studio, he made paper from the branches and burned the remaining wood to make charcoal for ink. The artist then silk-screened prints of each tree using ink and paper made entirely from the trees. These photographs are pictures of trees made from the trees.
Honeybees is a project that began when “colony collapse disorder” was a bold media headline. The artist discovered hundreds of dead and ailing honeybees scattered along the California shoreline. Instead of photographing the surreal scene, the artist collected bees, and photographed them in his studio. Using the nineteenth-century gum-bichromate printing process, Brandt made the prints from an emulsion of the bees themselves.
The series Taste Tests in Color is an extension of Matthew’s original monochromatic series Taste Tests, which were silk screens of iconic American landscapes printed using a food item such as ketchup or mole sauce in place of ink. Taste Tests in Color transforms images of Vernal Falls at Yosemite National Park into 4-color multi-layered silkscreens made of jewel-toned handmade edible ink. Each layer is made of a particular food product such as cotton candy, Kool-Aid, mouthwash, or pharmaceutical pills that recreates a color in CMYK or RGB color model. The series is an untraditional reinterpretation of the original landscape photography of the American West and playfully revisits early color film photography itself.
In December 2011, Forbes named Matthew Brandt one of tomorrow’s “brightest stars” in the article 30 Under 30: Art & Design. Brandt’s work is included in the collections of the Armand Hammer Museum, Cincinnati Art Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He was born in California in 1982, and received his BFA from Cooper Union and his MFA from UCLA. The artist currently lives and works in Los Angeles. - www.yossimilo.com/

Nature is Not Human Hearted

Written by Amelia Sechman

In Art, I am generally not a fan of beautiful landscapes. That is not to say that I do not appreciate the inherent splendor of nature, it just always seems too picturesque and subsequently too easy.  The source of my aversion is popular visual culture’s inundation of images showing over-saturated suns rising or setting, paths and docks receding into the distance, and natural monuments impressing their grandeur. It is a manipulation of the majority’s wide-ranging attraction to the unchallenging and aesthetically pleasing. In Water & Polaroid, Matthew Brandt’s current solo-exhibition at Highlight Gallery, he appropriates and subverts the archetypes of landscape and commercial photography to create works that are both visually striking and challenge the expectations of a “good” landscape photograph.

Mystic Falls K2Y3M3C4 (2013) Multi layered Duraclear and Duratrans prints processed with Mystic Falls water, in LED lightbox frame 65¼ x 46¼ x 2 inches. Courtesy of Highlight Gallery

If imitation is the highest form of flattery, then Matthew Brandt’s reference to contemporary and historical landscapes is a backhanded compliment. He utilizes the pop beauty of nature photography in combination with advertising devices, then breaks them down into a mash up of scenic disintegration. On one side of the gallery hang three bright light boxes, facing them is a mammoth color photograph and on the middle wall two small, monochromatic Polaroids contrast the surrounding vibrancy. While each photograph is undoubtedly of a beautiful vista, none of them gives viewers the cheap pleasures of mainstream landscape photography.

Nymph Lake WY 4 (2013) C-print soaked in Nymph Lake water 72 x 105 inches. Courtesy of Highlight Gallery

In both Nymph Lake WY 4 (2013) and the Mystic Falls triptych, Brandt made photographs referencing 19^th century landscape photography, then exposed them to water from the original site resulting in the deterioration of the materials. Nymph Lake WY 4, a 72 x 105 inch c-print looks as though the water in which it soaked for weeks freed the layers of emulsion, allowing them to organically spread across the image in exuberant chaos. Despite that the water is technically destroying the paper, it reveals the true nature of the medium and the unparalleled chromatic capacity of analog color paper.

Installation view, courtesy of Highlight Gallery

For the three Mystic Falls pieces, Brandt separated the CMYK layers of a single image and reproduced the multiple layers as Duraclear and Duratrans prints, which he then left under a simulated waterfall spouting water from Mystic Falls. Mounted in light boxes, the images are reminiscent of illuminated advertisements at bus stops, which draw us to them like moths to a flame. Brandt contrasts the overtly sensational media by allowing the organic materials of the original site to destroy the image of itself.

Installation view, courtesy of Highlight Gallery

The works slip in and out of varying levels of clarity and corrosion, transforming what is typically the most accessible subject matter into images celebrating the unpredictability of nature and of Brandt’s process. Commercial culture depends on the predictable desires of populations, which drives an attempt to control all variables and produce highly specified consumerist campaigns. Instead of attempting to “capture” the boundless magnificence of the great outdoors, Brandt allows nature to strike back and remind us that it will not be contained.
Water & Polaroid is on view at Highlight Gallery until May 18, 2013.

Matthew Brandt's Electric Photographs in "Two Ships Passing" at M+B: Don't Touch or You'll Get Shocked

By Carol Cheh 

Courtesy M+B

Matthew Brandt, CHCE0101, 2011, etched copper and fiberglas

I first encountered Matthew Brandt's work when he was still a graduate student at UCLA. During the 2007 open studios, he had his portrait series tacked up on the wall -- photographic images of people he knew, made using the old-timey method of salted paper prints, and incorporating the subject's bodily fluids in the development process.
Thus, the portrait of Jackie contained traces of her skin oil, while the portrait of George held bits of his vomit. It was a memorable body of work that deftly infected the staid tradition of portraiture with the poignancy of the abject and the everyday.
Brandt now has a solo show up at M+B through Oct. 29 and it's a stunner, continuing his pursuit of conceptual inquiries and alternative printing methods, and taking them to a whole new level. The image you see above is one of a series of large portraits of the city of Hunan, birthplace of Mao Zedong. They are all printed on circuit boards salvaged from China, which is now the primary manufacturer of this technology. Signs in the gallery warn you not to touch the artworks, as they are alive with electrical currents. Each board in the gallery is connected with hidden wiring that ultimately leads to an original Edison light bulb glowing in the next room.
The show, titled "Two Ships Passing," makes reference to the path of technological innovation and the curious interdependency of the U.S. and China; in a personal twist that seems characteristic of his work, Brandt himself is half Chinese and half Caucasian. The show is conceptually rigorous and aesthetically breathtaking; in person, these images look like tattered cyber-gothic landscapes -- beautiful and imposing and filled with the ambivalence of progress.