Matt Hollis: Confinement

Artist Matt Hollis of Washington, DC, continues my recent project by writing about "confinement." As usual, I extend an invitation to all local artists who would like to participate in this effort. Just email me!

green rising
acrylic on wood
2004

Matt Hollis: Confinement

I think that your project is a more engaging way to talk about my work than the typical response I get, which tends to be something like: “What is it?” As I say in my artist statement, “to explain my work is to limit its potential.” My first response to the word you choose is that it gets at this very difficulty: just as I would hope that my work could never be summed up in one word, the word confinement expresses this tendency to confine art to language, thereby drawing a neat little border around it from a distance. Instead, I see my work an ongoing process that involves the interaction between space and the art objects I create. Confinement evokes this notion of space.

Confinement is a daunting word—it is dark and oppressive. Confinement is the sharp lines and ridiculous laws that attempt to project an image of stability. To confine is to restrain, with an effort to establish limits around something. Yet once you define or confine a space you have set something in motion--you create potential. Borders – floors, bare walls, ceilings and doors — stir up so much possibility in the air that it begins to crackle. Unseen energy builds up, coming to a boil. My art springs from and embodies this tension; it acts out the release of this unseen energy.

I view art as a means by which to tap into the potential of the space around me and give it color and form. I choose materials that stimulate and activate to parallel the constant movement and change that is going on all around us. I work with organic shapes that represent nature and its ability to persist in the harshest of climates. The choice of an abstract style gives my work an open-endedness with regard to interpretation. My work ultimately explores the notion that perhaps there is more freedom in confinement than one might assume.

cradle falls
digital photo
2004

Previous Posts:

Charles Neenan: Tradition
Kelly Towles: Color
Ryan Mulligan: Originality