MATT MARELLO
Gallery 2
7 September – 7 October, 2012
Opening Fri, 7 Sept. 7-9pm
Press Release
Nestled somewhere between Early Netherlandish painting and the graffiti work of Keith Haring, Matt Marello’s new paintings and drawings are whimsical pseudo-iconography for a non-existent religion. Drawing inspiration from a hallucination he experienced at the age of 17, Marello explores the phenomenon of religion creation and myth-building, mining the intersection of writing, visual art, and apophenic constructions to assemble a chimeric confection that hovers on the edge of kitsch. Pierogi is pleased to present this new series drawings and paintings in Marello’s third exhibition at the gallery.
Marello is known for the irreverent wit and humor of his early video series: “Coming Soon,” “Sitcoms,” “Disasters,” and “Death Wish;” as well as more serious works like “The Pollock Project” and “Decline,” to name a few. In his last exhibition at Pierogi he explored the idea of apophenia, the experience of seeing patterns or connections in random or meaningless data, as well as a link between psychosis and creativity. This led to a strange and murky world linking the destruction of the World Trade Center and Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi epic, “2001: a Space Odyssey.”
Marello has exhibited extensively throughout the United States and Europe, including: “The Three Stooges,” Rome, Italy, and “Star Star” at the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center. He has received numerous fellowships and awards, including: John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, and Sonic Circuits X International Festival of Electronic Music and Art.