Exhibition - Matt Town: Coral

Microscope Gallery is very pleased to present “Coral” as the 4th solo exhibition at the gallery of new works by LA-based artist Matt Town.

Town, who frequently addresses social issues in his work, turns his attention in “Coral” to themes of chemical addiction in the US, drawing upon the experiences of and at times collaborating with his family members. His new works in installation, sculpture, painting, and 16mm film form a strikingly intense, poetic, and personal response to the opioid epidemic, alcoholism, and methods of addiction treatment. The works on view are the result of his own process of grieving and healing following the sudden death in 2018 of his older step-sister from opioids.

The title piece of the show “Coral” is a new 11-minute 16mm film, referencing both the marine organisms and the first name of Town’s sister, who was in her thirties when she died in her home on the Florida Gulf, where the artist is also from. For the film, which is shot underwater, Town spent over a year learning about, training for, and getting certified in open water scuba diving. The purpose was to create a living, ocean memorial by planting a “gravestone” sculpture within a coral reef, the act of which appears in the film. The circular stone — with the letters CORAL in capital letters on its surface— now rests at an undisclosed location off the coast of California and is made with environmentally friendly concrete into which Town mixed his sister’s ashes.

“Bleached coral can regain its health and can return to life after bleaching, which the film proposes by placing the concrete tombstone I made with my sister’s ashes on a reef in the ocean, to enable new growth and new life.” — MT

The artist’s use of black and white film stock connects the dangers of the unfriendly Pacific waters he dives in, the condition of the coral reefs — which experienced their worst global bleaching event in the years just prior to his sister’s death — and the solemness of his actions. While, at times, the unsettling figure of Town in his scuba gear reminds us of the precariousness of life and breath.

Town’s attention turns to the concepts and the history of addiction and recovery in a new series of medium- to large-scale sculptural wall painting installations titled “Biminis,” which are a type of boat top providing shade and protection. Each of the works in the series uses as its canvas and frame a hand-built bimini constructed by the artist’s father and step-mother that is hung on the wall over a large mirror. His parents have been making the boat covers for over 30 years, beginning when they worked together at a boat factory, which significantly contributed to his father getting sober from alcohol.

Town’s imagery, which is painted on the interior side of each work, consists mostly of raised shapes and patterns resembling sheets of paper, postcards, and pages of books created with over 20 coats of gesso as well as diagrams and dense texts, most of which are written backwards. It is only when viewed from the side, through the wall mirror, that the texts become readable. Some texts feature instructions from the artist’s father on how to build a bimini, with one also including a video projection of his making the very canvas onto which it is being projected. While others incorporate excerpts from various historical writings from Alcoholics Anonymous — the well-known, and often controversial, self-help program Town’s father has used to maintain his sobriety — including a description of the “white light” hallucinatory epiphany that led to the organization’s founding by Bill W. and his letters to Carl Jung, as well as instructions on the building of the organization’s archives, among others.

Finally, the multi-screen installation “Coral Reef” can be seen as an outgrowth of both the film and the “biminis” series. Part metaphorical imagining of a growing and thriving coral reef and part black box projection room, the installation consists of a looping 16mm film projection and four videos playing on monitors embedded into the walls of an 8 x 4 x 8 foot box in which the backs of the equipment and their cables are visible from the outside, which Town describes as akin to the exoskeletons of corals.

The short videos and film playing within were all shot in connection with the research and production of the film “CORAL” — during which Town himself stopped drinking — and range in length from 1 to 15 minutes. They include the following works: “Gravemaking,” recorded on Hi8 video, which documents a company in Florida offering burial of loved ones’ ashes at sea in artificial reefs that inspired the artist’s memorial film and sculpture; “Needles,” which was shot with his iPhone and desaturated during the editing process, featuring the trona pinnacles in Death Valley, an ancient lake that has left exposed the unusually, tall tufas that like coral also are formed with calcium carbonate; and “Nods,” composed of 35mm film photographs using a blue filter, in which the artist documents the restrooms in a chain of mini marts in rural Pennsylvania that had temporarily replaced their bathroom lights with blue bulbs to prevent people from shooting up and overdosing from opioids. The video “Training,” and the projected film “Rehearsal” both comprise footage of the artist in his ocean explaration equipment as he learns and practices for his memorial dive.