Matthew Paul Warner-Davies - Getting to Nowhere

Matthew Paul Warner- Davies Getting to Nowhere

M a t t h ew Pau l Wa r n e r - Dav i e s : Get t ing t o Now her e

Matthew Paul Warner-Davies: Getting to Nowhere - represents a chance to view the wonderful work of Matthew Paul Warner-Davies. Over the years, I am always interested to see how many people say they are leaving Nor thern California, “For a better place.” Only to find themselves returning to Nor thern California, a place close to their hear ts. We live in an area of immense beauty and richness that we sometimes fail to appreciate. But with time and experience, we come to understand and truly appreciate, the majesty within Nor thern California.

Matthew is clearly inspired by the beauty of his surroundings and is able to create interesting and inspiring work.

A few years ago, the University Ar t Gallery’s exhibition titled “Close to Home” featured the work of the faculty of Merced College and Modesto Junior College. Through this joint exhibition a new program of solo exhibitions of our colleagues was created. Matthew is one of our colleagues from Merced College.

Many of my colleagues here at California State University, Stanislaus, have had the oppor tunity to interact with students who received an excellent education, in the ar ts, from Merced College. These students come to us ready and eager to learn. We are for tunate to have ar tists like Matthew provide outstanding foundations for his students’ learning. I am very happy to be able to exhibit his work for others to enjoy.

I would like to thank the many colleagues that have been instrumental in presenting this exhibition. Matthew Paul Warner-Davies for the oppor tunity to exhibiting his remarkable work, Brad Peatross of the School of the Ar ts, California State University, Stanislaus for the catalog design and Parks Printing for the printing this catalog.

Much gratitude is also extended to the Instructionally Related Activities Program of California State University, Stanislaus, as well as anonymous donors for the funding of the exhibition and catalogue. Their suppor t is greatly appreciated.

Dean De Cocker Director, University Ar t Galleries California State University, Stanislaus

Whiskeytown, acrylic on paper, 22.5” x 30.5”, 2021

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M atth e w Pau l War n er- D av i e s

Biography Matthew Warner-Davies grew up in the Nor thern Californian city of Redding and received his MFA from UC Irvine. He is a professor of Sculpture at Merced College. He is a process-based conceptual ar tist who works in several different 3-d and 2-d mediums including casting, printmaking, painting, ceramics, and installation ar t. He conceives of his ar tistic work as a house built from four interrelated but distinct themes. The four themes of functionality, aesthetics, semiotics, and the social and personal nature of ar t objects. His work often plays with the tension between the autonomous ar t object and the exhibition space. Matthew Warner-Davies resides in Sonora, California with his wife and two sons.

Special Thanks A special thanks to my wife Kirsten. I wouldn’t want to be on this journey with anyone else. As the Beach Boy’s song says “God only knows what I’d be without you”.

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Paradise, acrylic on paper, 22.5” x 30.5”, 2021

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G e tting t o N ow h e re

I spent my early and teenage years in rural Nor thern California. When I left at eighteen, I purposed to never return to this corner of the world. However, the impact of that landscape stayed deep in my psyche and continued to reflect my sense of home.

A place is never just a piece of ground but the action upon it and the meaning it is imbued with. Places bear witness to the events that have happened within them. An example of this would be the site of a famous battle.

In many ways, it would reflect the landscape around it, but buried within the dir t there might be old bullet casings and there would probably be small hills where bunkers were created. Most places are not marked by famous events and would be considered unremarkable. These places are often said to be in the middle of nowhere. Yet, they are not without their significance, stories, and histories.

Much of contemporary life seems to cause us to be disconnected from the natural world, and the origins of things, ideas, and history. The Western world has a potted plant and cut flower quality to it. Things are made to be non-fixed, and the origins of the ideas we believe and the things we use are often overlooked or unknown.

There is a hunger for what is real and an ever-increasing engagement with the digital and vir tual.

“The hunger that we feel at the loss of contact with the natural world and its ancient stories is not a physical, but a kind of spiritual and emotional star vation. Yet feeding this hunger may involve nothing more than walking out into the landscape and looking at it with the eye of the imagination.” (Massey,4) A sense of disconnection from place can cause a sense of disconnection within our memories. The works of simplified architecture in this show are based on my memories. They are capturing the felt sensibility of places I have a connection with. The works are made with a colorful palette for emotional effect. Buildings have an interesting relationship with vessels and people. In a way, they are like vessels for people. The function of structures is reflected in their designs. As a whole, we know what a barn looks like as compared to a church.

We all have a shor thand of symbols and images embedded into our memories which allows us to navigate and name things in the world. The simplicity of the depiction of these structures allows them serves as a trigger for the viewer to access their memory (shor thand) of these forms and recall their experiences of places.

When learning to draw from life an ar tist practices the ability to set aside their shor thand and to learn to see.

The paintings on canvas have an upside-down “L” shape painted into the picture. These marks are used by many ar tists when drawing from observation. The images include these marks to contrast memory and sight. These works were not made from observation and the light and dark in them is as though it were from a single point and the structure was on the stage of the landscape. I am embracing illogical representations of perspective and the play of light to contrast the way ar t can operate as an illusory window into another world and as a vision of the world that happens within a viewer/par ticipant. The famous filmmaker and critic, Francois Truffaut, said he hoped for a film to “Tell something of the world and of cinema.” (Truffaut, 28). I feel that way about ar tworks.

I want them to tell something of the world and of ar t itself.

In 2018, and again more recently, I’ve watched places that I remember so well burn on the nightly news. I’ve

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begun to map my memories of these places, and the spread of the fire with acrylic paint on paper. These painted maps of the fires spread, serve as symbols of the effect of the fire on the landscape. They are made with thickly applied paint and have simplified and abstract shapes and thus are also about mapping abstraction, color, and texture as elements in the language of visual ar t.

The abruptness and intensity of the fires and the loss of childhood places is a specific instance of the fleeting nature of life and reminded me of the impor tance of places in the middle of nowhere. These works seek to be a map of this concern, a specific and par ticular imaging of it. “If we want to understand ultimate concerns, she claims [Flannery O’Conner], we must see them through the real, par ticular circumstances we experience here in the world.”, (Craft, 679).

The sculptures also serve as specific and concrete place-makers in the gallery, a site for reflection, personal memory, and critique. Ceramic sculptures go through an intensely hot firing process. The process solidified some forms and broke others. As such, these works serve as indexical signs of permanence and loss, and the larger abundance and loss we all experience in family, community, and nowhere.

Within the gallery are three sets of stairs which are identical castings of a form painted in different colors.

Unlike the other forms, they are not structures one would normally see in the landscape, but have a relationship to going from one place to another. They are placed throughout the gallery space, and while small in scale, they allow for the projection of one’s self into them. This speaks to the works communicating with each other and the viewer as a par ticipant Getting to Nowhere.

Bibliography Craft, Jennifer Allen. Placemaking and the ARTS: Cultivating the Christian Life.

Kindle ed., IVP Academic, an Imprint of InterVarsity Press, 2018. p.679 The Films in My Life: By FRANÇOIS TRUFFAUT, by Truffaut François, Kindle ed., Simon and Schuster, 1978, p. 28.

Massey, Eithne. Legendar y Ireland: Myths and Legends of Ireland. E-Book, The O’Brien Press, Dublin 2013. p. 4

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Dardanelles, acrylic on paper, 22.5” x 30.5”, 2021

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There is Always More to Tell Than Can Be Told, glazed ceramic, 16” x 11” x 12”, 2021

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There is Always More to Tell Than Can Be Told, glazed ceramic, 16” x 11” x 12”, 2021

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Be Joyful Though You Have Considered All the Facts, glazed ceramic, 16” x 7” x 10.5”, 2021

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Be Joyful Though You Have Considered All the Facts, glazed ceramic, 16” x 7” x 10.5”, 2021

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Nobody Can Discover the World for Someone Else, glazed ceramic, 15” x 11” x 7.5”, 2021

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Nobody Can Discover the World for Someone Else, glazed ceramic, 15” x 11” x 7.5”, 2021

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Nature is Party to All Our Deals and Decisions, glazed ceramic, 15” x 11” x 7.5”, 2021

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Nature is Party to All Our Deals and Decisions, glazed ceramic, 15” x 11” x 7.5”, 2021

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Locust Street, acrylic on canvas, 8” x 8”, 2018

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Bechelli Lane North, acrylic on canvas, 8” x 8”, 2018

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Gas Point Road, acrylic on canvas, 5” x 5”, 2021

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Oakdale Waterford Highway, acrylic on canvas, 12” x 16”, 2018

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Miners Gulch Road, acrylic on canvas, 9” x 12”, 2018

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Clark Road (HWY 191), acrylic on canvas, 12” x 16”, 2018

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Skyway, acrylic on canvas, 12” x 16”, 2018

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Old Airport Road, acrylic on canvas, 10” x 10”, 2018

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We Have Come to Our Real Work, ceramic and paint, 10” x 12” x 8”, 2021

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We Have Come to Our Real Work (detail), ceramic and paint, 10” x 12” x 8”, 2021

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Peace of Wild Things, ceramic and paint, 18” x 12.5” x 9.5”, 2021

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Peace of Wild Things, ceramic and paint, 18” x 12.5” x 9.5”, 2021

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The Law of Contradiction, cast plaster and paint, 3.75” x 7.25” x 2”, 2021

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The Law of Excluded Middle, cast plaster and paint, 3.75” x 7.25” x 2”, 2021

The Principle of Identity, cast plaster and paint, 3.75” x 7.25” x 2”, 2021

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M a t t h ew Pau l Wa r n e r - Dav i e s C V

EDUC ATION 2015 2011

Master of Fine Ar t in Studio Ar t, University of California Irvine Bachelor of Fine Ar ts in Sculpture, CSU Long Beach, Ca, Magna Cum Laude

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS 2019 2018 2017

2016 2015

2014

2012 2011

2008 2007

Faculty Art Show, College Gallery, Merced College, Ca Faculty Art Show, College Gallery, Merced College, Ca Bound and Unbound IV, University Library, University of South Dakota Creative Mission, Vargas Gallery, Mission College, Santa Clara, Ca Faculty Art Show, Vargas Gallery, Mission College, Santa Clara, Ca Bound and Covered, Library, Mission College, Santa Clara, Ca Back to School, Vargas Gallery, Mission College, Santa Clara, Ca Ellipsis, Frank M. Doyle Pavilion, Orange Coast College, Ca Book-ish, University Ar t Gallery, UC Irvine, Ca GLAMFA, Gatov Gallery, CSU Long Beach, Ca Second Year Show, University Ar t Gallery, UC Irvine, Ca Unrest, UC Irvine, Curated by Allyson Unziker, Ca BFA Exhibition, Gatov Gallery, CSU Long Beach, Ca Wont, Etc. Space, Second City Ar t Walk, Long Beach, Ca Entropy and Empathy, Merlino Gallery, CSU Long Beach, Ca (collaboration with Chris Denson) Show, Gatov Gallery, CSU Long Beach, Ca Indeterminacy, A&E Gallery, Long Beach, Ca Being and Appearing, A&E Gallery, Long Beach, Ca Metal Group Show, Gatov Gallery, CSU Long Beach, Ca Foundation Group Show, Gatov Gallery, CSU Long Beach, Ca Annual Student Show, Shasta College Gallery, Curated by Tom Marioni, Redding, Ca

ARTIST TALKS & PERFORMANCES 2015 2014 2011 2010

Ellipsis Galler y Talk, ar tist talk accompanying the exhibition, Orange Coast College, Ca Catalyst Lecture Series, annual graduate ar tist lecture series, UC Irvine, Ca Three Guys on an Island, Performance, Chora Gallery, CSU Long Beach, Ca Magic Show, Performance, Chora Gallery, CSU Long Beach, Ca

CURATION 2016 Ar t on Campus Committee, Mission College, Ca 2011–13 Wont, co-founder and member, An ar tist collective and pop-up gallery.

2011 Transitions, Chora Gallery, CSU Long Beach, Ca

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Ackn ow le dge m en ts

California State University, Stanislaus

Dr. Ellen Junn, President

Dr. Kimberly Greer, Provost/Vice President of Academic Affairs

Dr. James A. Tuedio, Dean, College of the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences

Depar tment of Ar t

Martin Azevedo, Associate Professor, Chair

Tricia Cooper, Lecturer

Dean De Cocker, Professor

James Deitz, Lecturer

Daniel Edwards, Associate Professor

Patrica Eshagh, Lecturer

Jessica Gomula-Kruzic, Professor

Daniel Heskamp, Lecturer

Chad Hunter, Lecturer

Dr. Carmen Robbin, Professor

Ellen Roehne, Lecturer

Dr. Staci Scheiwiller, Associate Professor

Susan Stephenson, Associate Professor

Jake Weigel, Associate Professor

Mirabel Wigon, Assistant Professor

Meg Broderick, Administrative Support Assistant II

Kyle Rambatt, Equipment Technician II

University Ar t Galleries

Dean De Cocker, Director

School of the Ar ts

Brad Peatross, Graphic Specialist II

Matthew Paul Warner-Davies - Getting to Nowhere November 10–December 22, 2021 | Stan State Art Space, California State University, Stanislaus | 226 N. First St., Turlock, CA 95380 300 copies printed. Copyright © 2021 California State University, Stanislaus • ISBN 978-1-940753-63-8 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of the publisher.

This exhibition and catalog have been funded by Associated Students Instructionally Related Activities, California State University, Stanislaus.

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