Artist Lecture Series

Michael Dowling's work has been characterized as a combination of traditional practices in realism and his explorations of mark, pattern, and color to disrupt that reality. In many compositions, figures presented as portrait, morph into their surreal self, and lone objects tell stories through their subtle positioning. These objects and characters sit in bizarre spaces with intentionally disrupted atmospheres in order to find further meaning within the imagery.

“I intend to use the traditions of painting and drawing in a very contemporary voice; I make my work with a great respect for those traditions along with a fun contempt for our current situations.

In my work I always explore our history as a people and how we are today because of it. I am always interested in the stories that repeat throughout cultures, especially those of a religious nature. I like to play with the elements of those stories, the symbols they use often are incorporated and intentionally misrepresented to form my own new myth ideas.

In this body of work, I have replaced my careful approach with the notions of volume, repetition, and time limits to explore the patterns in imagery that I’ve worked with for many years and to try to start seeing those images in new ways.

BRETT MATARAZZO

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Brett has spent the last 20 years developing a style for contemporary art and design that is uniquely repurposed, environmentally and socially conscious with an experimental soul.

Traditionally schooled and reared in Colorado, which imbedded and inspired his love of nature, Brett graduated from the University of Denver with a BFA in Design. His professional journey started in advertising/design, shaping and defining his aesthetic, social beliefs, and visual story telling. His work evolved organically to mixed media from a love of photography as shape, bold functional design, a strong environmental belief in re-purposing the old into something new, and the natural medium of wood as canvas.

A veteran of the Denver art culture, he created urban pop up galleries in unfinished spaces in the late 2000s to showcase and emphasize the enviro-social message of his work. That early exposure gave way to participating in some more established and curated group shows, further evolving his current work towards installation and sculptural art. An establishing member of ZEEL collective gallery on social issues in 2017, Brett is now passionate co-founder of  BRDG Project - Gallery,  bridging artist, gallery, community and the private sector together to create an accessible space for contemporary expression, and developing other local business/artist collaborations to keep art in economically developing Denver communities.

Brett continues to evolve and experiment, pushing paint, ink, paper, untraditional digital transfer, and laser etching on post-industrial wood to new sculptural, conceptual, and politically challenging depths.

STATEMENT
I have obsessive passion for the discarded, re-purposed into something new and beautiful. A conviction for how we perceive and coexist with our natural and man-made environment. My work is an exploration and commentary on the human condition, over consumption, and the environmental impact from it.

The struggle with man overtaking nature, and nature’s response: A political, personal, and emotional journey, between humanity, industrialism, and the natural world.