Matt Lipps
Untitled (Reach), 2010, C-print, 40 x 53 in.
Untitled (Animal), 2011, C-Print, 53 x 40 in.
Untitled (Artifact), 2010, C-Print, 53 x 40 in.
Untitled (Form), 2010, C-print, 40 x 53 in.
Untitled (Women’s Heads), 2010, C-Print, 53 x 40 in.
Untitled (Standing), 2011, C-Print, 53 x 40 in.
Untitled (Facing), 2010, C-print, 44 x 33 in.
Untitled (Curtain), 2010, C-print, 44 x 33 in.
Untitled (Double), 2011, C-Print, 40 x 53 in.
Untitled (Youth), 2010, C-print, 53 x 40 in.
About The Artist
Matt Lipps was born in 1975 and received his MFA from the University of California, Irvine and is currently based between San Francisco and Los Angeles, CA.
He has exhibited extensively, including in New York, Athens, Berlin and San Francisco. He was recently included in Greater Los Angeles, New York. His work is part of the LACMA and Hammer Museum permanent collections, and has been featured in numerous publications including Artforum, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Modern Painters and Art Ltd amongst others. Lipps’ work will be included in the upcoming Saatchi Gallery exhibition Out of Focus: Photography, from May to July later this year.
Review of the HORIZON/S Series
On first glance, Lipps’ pictures look pretty slick. Each shows a tastefully composed cluster of people, sculptures, buildings and banners, the mix made up of modern masterpieces from 20th century Europe and icons from ancient Greece, Africa and the Middle East.
A closer look reveals that Lipps’ images are not collages. Each depicts a diorama-sized stage, complete with tinted spotlights, matching backdrops, variously scaled props and mind-boggling shadows. The stars of Lipps’ mini photo-shoots are paper doll-style figures that he has cut out of an encyclopedia-style bimonthly publication that was popular in the United States from the late 1950s to the late 1970s. The low-tech, DIY skill-set is endearing. It’s also effective.
The shock of Surrealism plays no role in Lipps’ art. All of the people in his non-Photoshopped prints seem personable and sympathetic. Whether they originated as sculptures or paintings or etchings or newspaper reproductions, they all come to life in Lipps’ oddly old-fashioned photographs.
Something similar happens to the equestrian statues, mythical figures and abstract sculptures in his pictures. And it doesn’t take a great imaginative leap for the Medieval, Romantic and Modernist buildings to likewise take on their own lives.
In a society dominated by the logic of addiction — for maniacal focus and narrow-minded drive — Lipps’ enchanting works make a place for pleasure, for a type of playfulness that may seem corny but whose absence is tragic.
— David Pagel (LA Times Blog)
Matt Lipps at Josh Lilley Gallery
Matt Lipps at Silverman Gallery
Matt Lipps at Marc Selwyn Fine Art
posted by Carmelita Caruana
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