Matthew Satz

Immersed in the history of his medium and the sensuousness of his materials, Matthew Satz makes abstract paintings through which he aims to distill painting to its essence, pushing it in new formal directions. In his words, “Everything that I’m trying to do is really refinement, to break things down to their simplest [form].” Working in series, he acknowledges the ongoing battle to (re-)define painting by referencing his artistic forebears, including the Abstract Expressionists and Minimalists, and the critical conversations spurred by their work. In his “Strip Paintings,” for example, he pours thick rivulets of pigment down the front of the canvas, creating surfaces curtained with strips of paint, which continue past the composition’s edge. Recalling Barnett Newman’s “zips” and Jackson Pollock’s drips with his strips, Satz acknowledges both artists’ radical break with tradition, while determinedly forging his own path.