Mia Mulvey | Ancients & Matt Christie | Subtle Body

Two Colorado-based artists continue their explorations of nature and wonder at Goodwin Fine Art.

Mia Mulvey’s Ancients is a conceptual interrogation of natural history and the preservation of time. Like her monumental wall sculpture, Mast Year, shown at the Denver Art Museum in 2011, Ancients maps the form of ancient trees to explore wonder and discovery in the search for understanding. Her latest exhibition at Goodwin Fine Art consists of porcelain objects that utilize various aspects of scientific research, digital printing, and photo-based 3D scanning (photogrammetry). Cyanotype contact prints are also shown documenting the artist’s first site-visit to an ancient forest in Denmark during a residency at Guldagergaard International Ceramic Research Center in the summer of 2017.

The artist’s use of porcelain in Pando Forest, Utah, 2018 speaks to the fragility and endurance of a massive but endangered grove of quaking aspens that until recently was thought to be the world’s oldest and largest single organism. Mulvey’s search to expose the inner workings of nature and the layering of time finds another outlet in her wall piece, Bristlecone, White Mountains, 2018 – a circular cyanotype of charred tree bark that is suggestive of fragmented microscopic evidence. In it, as in all her work in Ancients, trees become both a physical and conceptual indicator of the environment, wherein each layer of bark records its history and that of its surroundings.

Mia Mulvey is an Associate Professor of Studio Art (ceramics) at the University of Denver, Colorado. Her work has shown in numerous venues such as the Denver Art Museum, Colorado; American Museum of Ceramic Art, California; ASU Ceramic Research Center, Arizona; and Goodwin Fine Art. She is a recipient of a Colorado Council on the Arts fellowship, a PROF grant from the University of Denver, and residencies at Kohler Arts in Industry, Wisconsin; and Guldagergaard International Research Center, Denmark. Mia received her B.F.A from Arizona State University and her M.F.A. from Cranbrook Academy of Art.

Matt Christie likens his Subtle Body paintings to an alchemical fusing of nature and the imagination. He writes that during his childhood “nature seemed to be presenting a world of wonder that affected me in ways I could not define…and I have been exploring that experience ever since.” Journey (60x48 inch oil-on-panel) exudes his philosophy of experiencing extreme elements like wind and snow rather than avoiding them. The piece depicts an isolated figure standing on a frozen lake against a horizon of trees and steel-gray sky; like other works in the Subtle Body series this transcendent piece is informed by years of solitary hikes and backpacking trips made in tranquil as well as harsh weather conditions. Secret Sulfur (another 60x48 inch oil-on-panel) evokes a magical situation in which the bright orange glow emitting from a remote campfire is balanced against a serene burning sunset. Christie states that his efforts in the studio are not so much about the objects “out there” as the mystery of a living, mutual exploration. “It’s not only that I am exploring nature, but that nature is exploring me.”

Matt Christie is a painter by nature and a printmaker by trade. Since 1980, he has collaborated as a printer with distinguished artists at Anderson Ranch Editions, a limited-edition, fine-art print publishing enterprise at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass Village, Colo; and as professional printer at Shark’s Ink in Lyons, Colo. 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. Currently, he is an Instructor at University of Colorado, Boulder. He holds an MFA in painting from Virginia Commonwealth University and a BFA in printmaking from the University of Denver.