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Jason Middlebrook: Line over Matter

Jason Middlebrook
You can take the city out of the city but you can't take the city out of the city, 2013
acrylic and spray paint on butternut
134-1/4 x 26-1/2 x 2-1/2 inches

Jason Middlebrook
Finding What's Left, 2012–2013
acrylic and spray paint on old-growth redwood
34 x 113-1/2 x 1-1/2 inches

Jason Middlebrook
Dividing My Time, 2013
acrylic and spray paint on cherry
101-1/4 x 17-1/4 x 1 inch

Jason Middlebrook
Inspired by the Shape, the Grain, and History, 2014
automotive paint and poplar on maple
104-1/4 x 15-1/2 x 1-7/8 inches

Jason Middlebrook
Cover Up, 2013
acrylic on tulipwood
67 x 21 x 1-1/2 inches

Jason Middlebrook
Corner Steps, 2012
acrylic on maple
100 x 20-1/2 x 1-1/4 inches

Jason Middlebrook
We do whatever it takes to define the land, 2014
Acrylic and spray paint on black birch
101-1/4 x 18-1/4 x 1-1/4 inches

Jason Middlebrook
My Grain, 2014
silkscreen ink on ash
32-3/4 x 20-1/2 inches

Jason Middlebrook
It's a Golden Landscape...Just Keep Looking, 2014
acrylic and ink on paper
29-3/8 x 40-7/8 inches

Jason Middlebrook
Western Cover, 2014
acrylic and ink on paper
22 x 30 inches

Jason Middlebrook
Rock Stars, 2014
acrylic and ink on paper
40-7/8 x 29-1/2 inches

Jason Middlebrook
Try to Understand What's Below (Part 1), 2014
acrylic and ink on paper
41-3/8 x 30 inches

May 22 – July 03, 2014

Opening reception: Thursday, May 22, 2014, 6-8 pm

Artist Talk: 7 pm

Lora Reynolds is pleased to announce Line over Matter, an exhibition of plank paintings and works on paper by Jason Middlebrook. This is the artist’s first presentation in the main exhibition space at Lora Reynolds Gallery.

The work in this show features angular, geometric motifs layered over free-flowing patterns. The hardwood slabs—tall, slender, leaning pieces or smaller works that hang directly on the wall—have natural edges and fluid grain patterns that seem at odds with the crisp designs Middlebrook imposes upon them. Similarly in the works on paper, bold, straight, rigid lines sit on top of subtle, undulating underpaintings; paint seems to muffle whatever is beneath it.

Middlebrook has long been interested in man’s complex and often adversarial relationship with nature. The straight lines and precise angles in his paintings might be found in math, architecture, and industry more readily than in grassy meadows or dense forests. But relying solely on this sort of metonymy is limiting. A more nuanced read reveals some of Middlebrook’s geometric patterns are also inspired by nature. Crystals and geodes form important reference points. Chevrons are a recurring motif that simultaneously refer to decorative military insignia and V-shaped, large-scale rock formations. Even Middlebrook’s metallic paints find their referents in the earth, where gold and silver originate.

The distinctions between natural and artificial, order and randomness, and man and Mother Earth are not always clear. But perhaps cloudiness is the point: instead of striving to catalogue and categorize, Middlebrook gives precedence to the feel of grass between his toes and sun on his forehead.

Jason Middlebrook, born in 1966 in Michigan, lives and works in Hudson, New York. Middlebrook has mounted solo exhibitions at a number of institutions, including the New Museum (New York), the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum (Connecticut), and the Santa Monica Museum of Art. He has participated in group shows at the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. Last year he unveiled a major outdoor sculpture commission at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery (Buffalo). Middlebrook’s work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and the Princeton University Art Museum, among others.