{"id":36367,"date":"2018-08-08T14:23:58","date_gmt":"2018-08-08T20:23:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=36367"},"modified":"2023-11-13T14:03:04","modified_gmt":"2023-11-13T20:03:04","slug":"this-time-its-personal-vincent-mattina-at-bdac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/this-time-its-personal-vincent-mattina-at-bdac\/","title":{"rendered":"This Time, It\u2019s Personal: Vincent Mattina at BDAC"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cBlind Faith\u201d (detail) by Vincent Mattina<\/p><\/div>\n

There isn\u2019t any rule against making art from a personal, as opposed to universal, point of view. Indeed, it could be argued that most good art started out with something private in it that energized the man or woman who made it. But it\u2019s also true that, for example, only when Leonardo released the Mona Lisa from his personal fixation, whatever that might have been, could the powerful sense of self-possession he captured in her portrait begin to hypnotize the masses.<\/h4>\n

\u00a0Vincent Mattina explains his own personal motivation for\u00a0Sleepless<\/em>\u00a0in his exhibition statement, but he only reveals the absolute nature of his feelings in \u201cCRAP Helmet,\u201d the one pedestaled sculpture here, which stands in the center of the semicircle formed by the surrounding 10 assemblages. Anyone familiar with pulmonary therapy\u2014the use of air delivered under pressure to treat breathing problems\u2014will likely recognize that the work\u2019s title riffs on \u201cCPAP,\u201d the generic name for the often-claustrophobic masks worn in bed to keep the wearer breathing while asleep. What animates Mattina\u2019s art is the tradeoff between necessary assistance and the nightmarish experience of waking up with one\u2019s head wrapped in plastic, which in his version becomes an elaborate headdress complete with bulky electrical wiring, goggles, and earphones, so that it bluntly walks a line between sensory deprivation and its capacity to expand his awareness enough to make art.<\/h4>\n
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\u201cChronos Departs\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

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Judging from the evidence found in Utah\u2019s galleries, assemblage is one of the more popular techniques among today\u2019s artists. Four of the five artists\u2014all men, it must be said\u2014now showing at BDAC use found objects extensively in their constructions. The lovechild of collage and mixed media, assemblage tolerates grafting together found and fabricated, old with new, and representational alongside real, in order to leaven nostalgia with a healthy dose of anxiety.<\/h4>\n

If assemblage can now be thought a medium in its own right, works like those at BDAC present some of its genres. Mattina focuses largely on time, which he invokes in part through the mixture of vintages everywhere present here, as well as with the many watches and clock faces, and especially the antiquated clockworks. A piece like \u201cChronos Departs,\u201d in which the mechanism has been displaced outside its case, like a vital organ removed from its body, also indicts technology: today\u2019s state-of-the-art medical gear will soon enough look as dated as a pendulum-regulated timepiece.<\/h4>\n

Assemblage enthusiasts are known to focus on content to the exclusion of formal concerns. It\u2019s worth noting, then, how the sheer material density of Mattina\u2019s works serve to overwhelm the viewer\u2019s visual attention, until the details lose focus, becoming a kind of cinematic background, like the scenery and set dressing that generate the atmosphere surrounding the actors in a film narrative. His choice of water, with its implication of drowning, and boats, that signify consciousness, play key roles in \u201cOrange Claw Hammer,\u201d which also includes a sextant and diving helmet. \u201cTempestuous,\u201d with its old-fashioned cork float, and \u201cDelta Waves,\u201d with obsolete copper plumbing, expand the metaphor. Anyone can, and likely does, feel a strong connection between consciousness and floating, dreaming and drowning, or even sleep and death; in this way, Vincent Mattina\u2019s sleep-deprived suffering becomes a meditation to share.<\/h4>\n