Matt Bahen

From a distance, Bahen’s paintings appear almost photographic in clarity yet as one draws near, the image disintegrates into a series of sculptural marks. The works themselves have an intrinsic dichotomy of surface and image; the thick and rough handling of the paint reinforces the brute nature of the subject and the conceptual agenda of the work. Through heavy paint and pronounced brushwork, these paintings possess an analog presence of the artists’ hand; they accomplish a distinct separation from the photograph, which is conflated with the idea of journalistic truth.