Image features “Elephant and Rider (twomb)”, a 2022 site-specific wall drawing that was part of Matt Shelton’s 2022 Principia College exhibition, “pretend, witness”.
repair is the dream of the broken thing by Matt Shelton will be on view from December 1-28 at New City Arts’ Welcome Gallery. Since 2014, Shelton has used paper pulped from a collection of Civil War Times Illustrated magazines he inherited from his paternal grandfather as a primary drawing and sculptural medium. This exhibition will deploy site-responsive installation, drawing and projection to explore relationships between medium and content, past and present, individual and collective memory.
New City Arts' Welcome Gallery
114 3rd St. NE, Charlottesville, VA 22902
First Fridays
December 1 from 5-7:30PM; Artist talk at 6PM.
Free and open to the public. All ages welcome.
Gallery Hours
Wednesday-Saturday from 10AM-5PM
Exhibition Events
Splat the Past with Matt | November 28 | 4-6PM | Participate in the installation of paper pulp wall drawings
Why Splat the Past?: Lecture & Discussion with Matt Shelton | December 7
Visitor Guide
Matt Shelton presents a series of interconnected works in different media. Entering the gallery, the window contains a frosted rectangle that acts as projection screen for a series of animated, abstracted GIFs. Inside, viewers hear the low hum of an ambient audio soundtrack of layered, droning static and intermittent melodies in guitar, banjo and brass that vacillates between soothing to slightly discomforting. On one wall, they encounter a music stand holding items including brass rods, a graphite stick, a snake skin in a plastic bag, dentures, and more. Nearby, hanging from the ceiling are two polyester flags, hung back-to-back, with kaleidoscope-like dye sublimation prints of 3D scans. A sculpture—an assemblage of a cardboard box, Civil War books, paper pulp, a brass rod, and zip ties—sits on a counter top in the back half of the gallery. A paper pulping station sits in the middle of the room on the floor and beyond it, visitors see a large paper-pulp wall drawing of a woman and child.
All ages are welcome to engage with this exhibition. Please note that close adult supervision will be necessary as much of the work is within reach of children. The GIFs referencing clips from Gone with the Wind (rated G) include a bandaged head wound and references to enslavement and war. You are welcome to reach out to staff with any questions prior to visiting.
Listen to the Exhibition Playlist 🎧
Exhibition Statement (courtesy of the artist)
In repair is the dream of the broken thing, Matt Shelton presents artworks that explore themes of memory, mythology, and transformation through paper relief sculpture, assemblage, video and sound components. Drawing on personal ties to the Confederacy (Shelton’s middle name comes from an ancestor who served in the CSA), the works reflect his process of taking apart and reconfiguring cultural artifacts that evoke notions of the geographic, historical and contemporary South. In a video, a sequence of fleeting clips lifted from Gone with the Wind are decelerated to form a video dirge; a sound piece pulverizes the instrumentation and chord structure of country music into an anesthetizing new age audio mush; and the closer one gets to what at first appears to be a tidy line drawing on the wall, the more it resembles a network of scabbing wounds. Shelton’s works aim to evidence the affective process of reckoning with whiteness and masculinity as social, political and imaginative forces. Some visions are lethal; some creations destroy. What might become transformation could look and feel like death in the moment. Searching for material metaphors that beautifully embody unbecoming processes, Shelton’s works materialize the generative mess that occurs when “one enters into battle with that historical creation, Oneself” (Baldwin).
About the Artist (courtesy of the artist)
Artist, writer and teacher Matt Shelton (he/him) received a BFA from Guilford College in 2004 and an MFA in Painting and Printmaking from VCU in 2012. He has exhibited nationally in solo and group presentations and internationally in collaboration with Nikolai Noel (Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago). His writing has appeared in Burnaway, MONDAY Art Journal, Southern Cultures, Art Papers, Ext.1708, LOOKsee, and the Richmond Arts Review. Over the past decade, he has taught across 2D, conceptual, digital, and time-based mediums to undergraduates in Virginia. He lives with his family in Earlysville, Virginia, and teaches middle school art in Charlottesville.
Located at 114 3rd St. NE on Charlottesville’s downtown pedestrian mall, New City Arts’ Welcome Gallery supports artists who live in the Charlottesville area. Welcome Gallery exhibitions and programs are made possible by generous sponsors, donors, and grants. Interested in sponsoring an exhibition? Connect with us!