Vatnajökull

March 21 - June 20, 2020

M+B Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

VATNAJÖKULL

MARCH 21 - JUNE 20, 2020

M+B is pleased to announce Vatnajökull, Matthew Brandt's fifth solo exhibition at the gallery. The show marks the debut of a new series which takes on the glacial terrain in Iceland as its subject. This new body of work extends the artist’s on-going interest in the chemical color process and is his third to explore chromogenic material with natural elements.

Matthew Brandt’s photographic practice is relentlessly experimental, even as he remains committed to traditional modes of picture-making. The artist's unorthodox treatments and use of materials both dismantle and celebrate the classic genre of landscape photography, with his interventions inviting the viewer to develop a deeper relationship with the subject and the photograph.

In Vatnajökull, Brandt captures the powerful geothermal intensities of Iceland’s wilderness. He exposes his photographs of the Vatna ice field to fire and heat, and then through color-separation creates a range of tonalities across multiple impressions of a single image. With their blistered and undulating surfaces, each photograph emerges with its own topography. For the viewer, the act of looking becomes a haptic, multi-sensorial experience, tactile and pulsing. In bridging subject with material, Brandt enlists the senses to make meaning of the rugged, majestic landscape.