STABILITY OF PLACE AND THE WORK OF PAINTER MATTHEW KIRBY

Yesterday I got to have a long phone chat with my friend Matthew Kirby, a painter from Brooklyn about whom I’ve written before. [Here’s one post and here’s another].

You can see more of his recent paintings HERE.

Or if you happen to live in NYC, you can stop by tomorrow, Saturday, May 26, from 2 to 4, for the closing reception of his recent show at Darling Coffee, 4961 Broadway, New York, NY 10034.

The series in question is called Stabilitas Loci.
Here’s a bit of his commentary on that title.

“Stabilitas Loci (Stability of place: a commitment to remaining in one location.)

“In a still life nothing acts, nothing gesticulates, nothing does anything else than to be.”

“Without this this deep-seated, quiet, and immobile energy […] nothing in the world would move, nothing would operate, nothing would exist.”

-Etienne Gilson, Painting and Reality

Despite the momentous upheavals of our time and the pervasive sense that the future will either be revolutionized by experts or detonated by madmen, our daily lives are full of moments of stillness, of objects that remain where we place them at night and are there in the morning when we awake. I created these paintings as a way to contemplate and share that stillness that is at the core of reality.”

The Dutch have their Old Masters. I think of Matthew as a New Master.