The New Paintings: Matthew Langley

BLANK SPACE is pleased to announce "The New Paintings" the second solo exhibition of works by Matthew Langley at the gallery. The exhibition will open on Thursday, October 22 and continue to be on view until December 16, 2015. In his latest body of work, Langley expands the scope and formal language of his painting and renews the approach to surface, color and structure of his work. His resulting paintings are ethereal and luminous.

Langley continues to focus on the pure act of painting while he departs from his iconic grid-like structures and monochromatic hues. His layering of paint has become more delicate and subtle, and the contrast between dark and light has amplified. With a brighter color palette, his new and simple compositions emphasize the vivid gradations and dynamic interplay between colors. The texture of the painted surface and the organic patterns created by Langley's gestural brushstrokes charge the canvas with vibrant energy and movement.

Langley's practice of creating one painting a day, becomes an intrinsic part of the artist's ritual-like art making process. While his paintings are the result of a series of decisions and planning where he experiments with a form, color, or gesture, Langley also allows the final work to emerge by relying on spontaneity, chance and improvisation. Langley carefully builds layers of materials and texture on canvas, the brilliant harmonies of organic and arranged structures as well as the natural and unnatural blending of colors provoke a new range of response from the viewer. 

Matthew Langley received his BFA from Corcoran School of Art in 1985. Since then, Matthew Langley's work has been shown extensively in the United States through numerous group and solo exhibitions. Langley's paintings have also been included in various public and corporate collections including; the International Museum of Collage, Assemblage, and Construction, The Doris Patz Collection at the University of Maryland University College (UMUC), DC Commission for the Arts and Humanities, Ernest and Young, PNC Bank, University of Baltimore and MacAndrews & Forbes. He lives and works in New York City.