FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MINDY BRAY | URBAN IDYLL
December 11 – January 23, 2016
MATT CHRISTIE | GERMINATION
December 11 – January 23, 2016
Opening Reception for the Artists
Friday, December 11th, 5 until 8
Goodwin Fine Art is pleased to announce an exhibition of
new work by Mindy Bray. Bray who has most recently
been working on an epic scale for a public art commission
at DIA’s new Westin Hotel takes a smaller scale and more
focused approach in the work for the current show, with
the one exception being the multi-paneled painting on
paper Instream that measures six feet by nine feet.
In this new body of work Bray continues to explore abstract patterning and shape found in the
natural world. The more abstract paintings come into focus when viewed at a distance, which isn’t
surprising given that part of Bray’s process is working from digital images that she has shot of her
surrounding environs. Bray who enjoys working on site-specific projects will paint direct onto the
gallery walls and will introduce a 3-d element through colored sheets of resin that float above the
painted wall surface below. Heightening the play or commentary on our built and manipulated
environments that ultimately informs the artist’s work. Bray’s point of reference for her subject
matter includes images from both the urban and suburban landscape as well as wilderness areas.
Her interest lies in how the interjection of our collective will to enforce order and structure onto
the landscape where none previously existed ultimately affecting our engagement and sense of
place.
In her work Bray has traced and investigated geographic topographies, that includes the diversion
and flow of rivers as they cascade over man-made boulders to increase our visual experience and
enjoyment, as the artist writes in her statement for the show,
“The works in this exhibition represent a longing for connection, a hope to enrich our everyday lives
with an authentic experience of the natural world. Yet, they also reveal a desire to order and alter
our environment, in order to place it comfortably within our urban framework, and the quirks that
arise in the process.”
Mindy Bray received her MFA in painting from the University of Iowa and was the recipient of the
Mildred Pelzer Fellowship award. In 2009 Bray was Artist-in-Resident at the Anderson Ranch Art
Center in Snowmass, Colorado. In addition to her recently completed public art commission
Strange Continents, at the Westin DIA; the site-specific commissioned painting The Heavy is the Root
of Light can be seen at the Colorado Convention Center. Bray’s work has been included in
numerous exhibitions both locally and nationally including the Urban Institute for Contemporary
Art in Michigan.
Matt Christie’s new body of work shows the artist’s ongoing interest in
exploring the intersection between printmaking and painting. Christie is a
master printer who is facile in multiple printmaking techniques from color
lithography to woodblock. Inherent in the printmaking process where
alchemy and imagination come together there is much that occurs in the way
of experimentation. In this work remnants of pulled prints that were set
aside by Christie through the years as a printmaker are reinvigorated and
integrated as the background to the paintings.
Christie’s subject matter gestures toward the symbolic and the opposing contradictory nature of
things. In one painting perfectly formed, pale blue robin’s eggs sit atop a dead tree stump, in
another a burning ember or flame is contained within a birdcage. As the artist explains;
“Fire radically transforms, and either warms life or destroys it. Once a fully realized
tree, a stump may be dead—or it may unexpectedly renew itself.”
Christie’s narrative with his use of personal symbols along with more universally understood ones
serves as the background to the artist’s commitment to his creative process and the give and take it
requires to see the work to fruition.
“Nestled in these tensions is an exploration of the creative process itself and its relationship
to my own growth……Can I sustain the unknown long enough for a work to manifest itself? “
Matt Christie received his MFA in printmaking from Virginia Commonwealth University and a BFA
from the University of Denver. Christie served as Director and Master Printer of Anderson Ranch
Editions and additionally was the Artistic Director for Printmaking at Anderson Ranch in Snowmass
Village.
Matt has taught and lectured at the Rhode Island School of Design; Rutgers University; the
University of Georgia’s Study Abroad program in Cortona, Italy; Arrowmont School of Arts and
Crafts; and the Appalachian Center for Craft at Tennessee Tech University, among others. He has
taught numerous workshops at Anderson Ranch Arts Center, prior to and during his tenure there.
Currently, Matt is Visiting Lecturer at University of Colorado, Boulder.
Christie’s work is widely collected and is included in the following public collections; Denver Art
Museum, Denver, Colorado; Fidelity Investments, Boston, Massachusetts; Citibank Corporation,
New York, New York; Patton Boggs Attorneys, Washington D.C.; Kaiser Permanente, Denver;
USAA Mutual Funds, San Antonio, Texas; Special Collections, University of Colorado, Boulder,
Colorado.