"In Kirk's first solo exhibition with de boer, the New York-based artist presents large and medium-scale works evoking art historical antecedents from Henri Matisse, Christopher Wool, and Joe Fedderson as well as traditional pictography, abstraction, and the cultural memory of his upbringing. The exhibition's title, In a Time of Darkness, This Is Wonderful News, captures the spiritual optimism embedded in Kirk's process that leads with joy, clarity, and connection."
"Honoring both a contemporary aesthetic and the cultural imagery of his childhood, having been born in Arizona, and relocating to the Wisconsin shores of Lake Michigan, Kirk balances vivid formalism with personal symbolism. Recurring silhouettes of feathers, trees, moons, and limbs appear and reappear across the panels, embedded in shifting environments of sky blues, flat blacks, and fluorescent pinks. The surfaces evoke graffiti, pattern languages, and craft traditions that dwell in the space between recognition and mystery, between mark and meaning."
Matthew Kirk presents large and medium-scale mixed-media wall works and sculpture that blend art-historical references, traditional pictography, and memories of his upbringing. Vibrant color fields—sky blues, flat blacks, and fluorescent pinks—frame recurring silhouettes of feathers, trees, moons, and limbs across layered panels. Surfaces reference graffiti, pattern languages, and craft traditions, navigating between recognition and mystery. Urban materials, compositional fragmentation, and rhythmic arrangements produce works that feel ancient and contemporary, analog and digital, sacred and irreverent. The title In a Time of Darkness, This Is Wonderful News signals spiritual optimism and the works act as flares of identity amid contemporary urgency.
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