MONOPRIN TS / ARCHES / 15″ X 22″ PAPER, 12″ X 12″ IMAGE SIZE

MONOPRINT / COLLAGE /GLITTER DOILIE / 15″ X 22″ PAPER , 12″ X 12″ IMAGE SIZE

TOP ROW: MONPRINT / ARCHES / 12″ X 12″ PAPER SIZE, 8″ X 8″ IMAGE SIZE

BOTTOM ROW: MONOPRINT / GLITTER / ARCHES / 12″ X 12″ PAPER/ 8″ X 8″ IMAGE SIZE

MONPRINT/ METALLIC INK / ARCHES / 12″ X 14″ PAPER SIZE / 8″ X 8″ IMAGE SIZE

MONOPRINT / ARCHES / 15″ X 22″ PAPER SIZE / 12″ X 12″ IMAGE SIZE

MONOPRINT /ARCHES / 10″ X 10″ / FRAMED

MONOPRINT /ARCHES /  22″ X 26″

MONOPRINT / PATTERN PAPER / GLITTER / 10″ X 10″ FRAMED

LEFT: COLLAGE /ENAMEL / GLITTER DOILIES/ PANEL / 24″ X 24″

RIGHT: ACRYLIC / GLITTER / WOOD / 10″ X 10″ X 4″

ACRYLIC / PAPER CUT OUT / GLITTER / PANEL / 8″ X 8″ X 3″

ACRYLIC / SPRAY ENAMEL / CANVAS / 16″ X 20″

ACRYLIC / SPRAY ENAMEL / PAPER CUT OUT / CANVAS / 8″ X 10″

ONE DEATH

ACRYLIC / BLACK BOARD PAINT / PANEL / 40″ X 40″

MEMORIAL…FIVE DEATHS

BIRTH, SEPERATION, SEXUALITY, ILLNESS AND LOSS

ACRYLIC ON WALL / HIGH GLOSS / 12″ X 60″ X 5′

Doilies fall into that irresistible category of indeterminate objects: they are at once fancy and cheap. They look great sitting under cakes, making dessert automatically more glamorous, but when we stain them with crumbs and icing we don’t grieve—we know where to find more among their mass-produced sisters and brothers. Matthew Hilyard recognizes and makes the most of the doily’s slippery status, delving into his doily collection to create prints and paintings that spotlight paper lace’s elegance as well as its camp delusions of grandeur. Through precise arrangements, deliberately formal studies in composition, careful color choices and combinations, and sensuous treatment of surfaces, Hilyard produces the “ode to a doily” par excellence with the seriousness of purpose, respect, and sense of humor that these simple/complex objects merit.

Hilyard utilizes the doily’s “natural” good looks and everyday life connotations to make works where the doily is always itself—a decoration for a cake plate or display—as well as an analogue for something else—a character, a shape, a trace image, or an emblem. Often the doily seems to leave the tabletop in order to float in space, sometimes rising like the sun in a sea of color or the moon on a ground of starry glitter, while at other times the painting or paper print’s surface is the tablecloth seen from above where the doilies rest and no longer have their display objects. As arrangements of circular figures on grounds of flat color, these doily works connect to 1960s Post-Painterly Abstraction where artists like Kenneth Noland and Frank Stella focused exclusively on color and shape, and as part of the phenomenon of importing decorative items into high art, these pieces also partake of the legacy of the 1970s Pattern & Decoration movement represented by artists like Joyce Kozloff and Miriam Schapiro. The doily images resemble tableaux as well, for when two doilies are together, meeting alone, they look like lovers in a rendezvous, the gap between them filled with longing. We anticipate their touch, and much like Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s works with two mirrors side by side or two identical clocks perfectly in sync (significantly subtitled “Perfect Lovers”), the doilies parallel same-sex lovers or an ideal of romantic love where two people are so similar that their intimacy is boundless.

In works with multiple doilies, the lacey circles seem to move across the space, rolling like a ball or overlapping in a stutter, a kiss, or the mitosis of cells. Images with other kinds of paper lace come across as delicate screens, curtains, or wrought iron fencing through which gardens and private spaces are made more enticing; they even bring to mind a lace veil over a face or lace stockings stretched over a thigh. Hilyard’s application of glitter to the doilies, patterned lace, and backgrounds functions like the doily in our lives, adding another layer of luxury and dazzle to our fancy occasions, comparable to make-up or a sequin dress. The glitter also adds to the confusion of whether the doilies and lace forms are a presence or an absence, a trace of what was once there or a completely two-dimensional representation of objects that are actually, although barely, three-dimensional. When the doilies and paper lace appear occasionally as collage elements, the spatial orientation becomes even more uncertain. Once again we face indeterminacy, but within the alluring realm of surfaces where glitter, doilies, and their ghosts intermingle—a birthday party reverie where we confront and meditate on the status of everyday objects.

Genevieve Waller

August 2009

Genevieve Waller is a Ph.D. student in the Visual & Cultural Studies program at University of Rochester in Rochester, New York. She is originally from Wichita.

Steckline Gallery

De Mattias Fine Arts Center

ICON

Opening reception

August 28, 5 to 7 p.m.

Art for lunch presentation

September 1, 12 to 1 p.m.

IN THE SUMMER OF 2008 I WAS OFFERED AN ARTIST RESIDENCEY AT KANSAS NEWMAN UNIVERSITY. THIS OPPURTUNITY INLCUDED THE FULL USE OF THE PRESSES AND THE DEPARTMENTS MATERIALS IN INKS AND PAPERS. A RETURN TO THE PRINTING PROCESS THAT I FIRST EXPERIENCED WHILE ATTENDING WICHITA STATE UNIVERSITY.

“During the Spring of 2008, I used many contemporary materials–including readymade items that you find at a craft store–to explore printmaking. I discovered that these objects have a built-in energy that excites me as an artist. By utilizing these materials in the medium of printmaking, I found a different purpose for them–elevating and considering them in detail. I continue to search for new meaning in my work and have found extraordinary experiences in the ordinary, everyday items that I used in this body of work.”

________MATTHEW HILYARD

MONOPRINT ON ARCHES

9″ X 9″

MONPRINT ON PATTERN PAPER / GLITTER

12″ X 12″

STUDENT / FACULTY EXHIBIT

 June 26- August 9, 2009

NEW WORK FOR THE EXHIBIT

ENAMEL / ACRYLIC ON PANEL

4′ X 6′

ACRYLIC / ENAMEL ON PANEL

24″ X 24″

ENAMEL ON PANEL 40″ X 40″

ACRYLIC / ENAMEL ON PANEL

4′ X 4′

NEW WORK ON

CARDBOARD

@

CITY ARTS

IN THIS SERIES OF WORKS ON CARDBOARD I AM RESPONDING TO MY OWN PERSONAL ENVIRONMENT. ALWAYS SEEKING NEW MATERIAL AND SURFACES TO CREATE SPACE.

 MY PASSION FOR DISCOVERY IS WHAT FUELS ME TO SEEK OUT ALTERNATIVE WAYS TO COMMUNICATE. I FORCE MYSELF TO RE-USE AND REDISCOVER A MATERIAL THEN PLACE IT IN A CONTEXT OF FELT ENERGY THAT FORCES ONE TO CONSIDER POSSIBLITY.

ACRYLIC ON PAPER

24″ X 24″