Last Week in Art: Matt Blake
Motor City Brewing Works
4701 W. Canfield, Detroit
(Between Cass and 2nd)
313-832-2700
Every Wednesday Night, 7-11 pm
(December 21, 2005)

If you've been to the Motor City Brewery at all recently, you've seen a lot of Matt Blake. As drummer for the rock duo Misty, he played a set there a week ago last Saturday. He was back a few days later for the Wednesday night art spotlight. It is less surprising to learn that Blake is both a musician and an artist, but rather the departure that this body of work has taken from what he has shown in the recent past.

At a group show over the summer at Suzanne Hillberry Gallery, Blake exhibited a collection of architectural friezes he built from raw lumber and found objects. He arranged baby dolls, trophies, and miscellaneous detritus under a partial roof and uniformly sprayed them with a marbleizing paint. The effect was that of a narrative architectural artifact unearthed from a mythological Detroit temple. But not for this show. Gone were the doll heads and little league trophies – replaced by a set of paintings on saw blades and a separate series of small sculptures resembling mountain scenes. What is still present is an open-ended narrative consisting of recognizable shapes, objects, and symbols. (For words about that exhibition click here.)

In the paintings, Blake keeps many elements of the saw blade tradition – a peaceful sweeping landscape rich with clouds and trees and lush with blues and greens. But where one would expect to find such saw blade paintings on a long, rectangular and panoramic blade, Blake's work manifests itself on smaller circular blades. The lovingly rendered landscapes come to an abrupt halt as the trees, grass, and sky end in the sharp whirlwind cutting edge of the circular saw blade.

The unusual imagery Blake incorporates is even more unsettling. In the piece entitled “Don't Bet the Farm,” a serene country scene of a barn and a white fence is pierced with a precise black triangular shape in the sky. This image came forth from a personal experience Blake and his wife Hazel had over the summer. While relaxing on the front porch of their Detroit home during the All Star game, they saw a stealth bomber dart through the clouds.

In each of the 14 or so saw blade pieces on the wall, similar authoritarian disturbances can be found. In “No Hearing,” two orange surveyor's flags mark a grassy meadow. The viewer might wonder if they signify some sort of property dispute or a buried gas line or cable. The bright orange contrasts sharply against the dark lush green amplifying the idea of disturbance or perhaps even danger.

These subtle interruptions are carried over to a row of small sculptures which Blake calls “The Overlook Series.” Cotton balls on wires serve as clouds against a grayish driftwood mountain. To offset the serenity, he places delicately constructed antennae on the mountains. Our friendly neighborhood stealth bomber even makes an appearance in one of the tableaus.

"They always find some way to muck it up," says Blake referring to how the authoritarian aspects of humanity - whether governmental or corporate – always find some way to leave their mark on a landscape. His words describe a very critical stance but his treatment of these "mucking" elements – the bomber, the radio towers, the orange flags – is subversively harmonious with his chosen techniques. These symbols of unrest take up very little relative space and are so delicately created that they seem to be almost reverent. The overall scale of the work also adds to this subtle treatment by begging an intimate interaction. You must get close to the work to experience the sharp cutting images that Blake includes, adding another layer of subversion.

Regardless of the tools and materials Matt Blake decides to use – found objects, saw blades, paint brushes, drumsticks or small black shapes that look like military aircraft - he always seems to know what to do with them. By packaging his sharp criticism of the powers that be into intimate open-ended experiences, he invites the viewer to ponder the idea of authority as part of a landscape. So should you feel perfectly at ease about that radio tower that's being built in your neighborhood? How about the little orange flags at your feet that possibly signify a legal dispute or a ruptured gas line? If you get the chance, maybe you should ask the pilot of the stealth bomber that just flew over your house. - Mike Richison

Comments, email Nick Sousanis, ws@thedetroiter.com