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Bill Mattern

CV

Selected Works

- Conceding to Dawn (2023)
- Fifty Dollars for the Powder Room (2023)
- “All I want...” he said, “is thirty seconds” (2022) 
- Ineffable Vessels of Insatiable Release (2022) 
- They’re Quiet Now (2021)
- The Fellows Backstage Will Do (2020)
- Can You Help Me Find The Remote? (2019)
- The Vulnerability Behind the Veil (2018)

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©2023 Bill Mattern 
Bill Mattern 

CV

They’re Quiet Now (2021)


Seriously, in front of my dawning futurity??? (2021). Oil on Canvas. 62 x 50 x 2 in
They’re Quiet Now (2021) is a collection of 4 oil paintings that examines the performance of masculinity through imagery based on 3D computer-rendered scenes. Within the language of sexualized kitsch, ranging from tacky 90s superhero camp to John Galliano era Dior advertisements, I depict an illusion of transparency as homoerotic digital figures take on a gelatinous, glass-like appearance. Through taking stock of the objectively bland qualities of the hypermasculine forms, I investigate what is considered a perfect body, what it means to have a body, and what it means to be perceived as a body. In this line of interrogation, I contemplate how perfection impacts sexual desire.

It Was Never Just The Tip (2021). Oil on Canvas. 32 x 42 x 2 in

(Detail) It Was Never Just The Tip (2021). Oil on Canvas. 32 x 42 x 2 in (Detail) It Was Never Just The Tip (2021). Oil on Canvas. 32 x 42 x 2 in

Informed by this visual lexicon, I construct various scenarios that codify highly eroticized states of castration anxiety through accumulative paint applications, varying from controlled to chaotic. Rooted in weaponized ambiguity, I hide these figures in plain sight to question the role of consumption and taste through a conflict of optical understanding. What is seen? What is lost in translation?

As the imagery exists in a hallucination, the work represents a battle between idealization and inescapable reality. By painting these scenes, instead of merely 3D rendering them, I embrace the romantics of failure. The human hand can never live up to the perfection of a computer. But what does it mean to try? The paintings, therefore, utilize the overperformance of painting to translate digital overconsumption through the limitations of the human condition.

Gobsmacked (2021). Oil on Canvas. 42 x 32 x 2 in

They're Quiet Now (2021). Oil on canvas. 72 x 72 x 2 in


All image and text rights reserved to Bill Mattern.
Do not reproduce without written consent.


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