Time Dreams of Itself

EXHIBIT OVERVIEW

The earth and ecology that once determined human lives has given way to the atemporal stoicism of technology. Work filled with floating symbols, secretive figures, and mysterious sources of light—drawn from classical paintings and liturgy—beckon us to remain human.

EXHIBIT STATEMENT

The old, cyclical order of the earth and ecology that once determined human lives has given way to the atemporal, uncaring regime of technology. The present grows more chaotic every day; symbols and images detach from their original meanings and associate in new ways. I depict human hopes and fears against this new background. I fill my work with floating symbols, images with multiple meanings, mirrors, secretive figures, and mysterious sources of light. I combine motifs from classical paintings and the liturgy with references to niche internet communities and the iconography of smartphones, satellite imagery, and commodities. I draw and paint everything by hand, but I sometimes work with a stylus as well as a paintbrush, or paint on industrial plastic instead of paper or canvas. Overall, I want to find a way to make sense out of the visual chaos around us—distill and synthesize some of the contemporary human experience, crystallize it into a small moment of beauty. As our relationship to the earth changes, we can’t help but change as well—but beneath the endless simulation, imitation, mass production, I have faith that something human yet remains.

MAT DUNCAN

ARTIST BIO Mat Duncan holds a BFA in Printmaking from Winthrop University, an advanced Art & Art Theory certificate from Winthrop’s sister school, the Saimaa University of Applied Sciences in Imatra, Finland, and a master’s degree in Museum Studies from Harvard University. Duncan primarily works in acrylic, watercolor, and gouache on paper and mylar. His recent work focuses on ecology and explores how, as our relationship to the earth changes, we sometimes change along with it. He describes his own works as brief snapshots of dreams or nightmares, depicting human hopes and fears against the backdrop of a distorted natural world.