Quintessa Matranga, Tables and Chairs at What Pipeline, Detroit, September 10-October 29, 2022.

What Pipeline is happy to present new paintings and sculptures by Quintessa Matranga.

The exhibition title Tables and Chairs denotes the subjects of each artwork with fashionable self-awareness. Through painting and two sculptures, the presumptive function of various furnishings is extrapolated by Matranga’s rendering of setting and form.

The fixtures depicted in this exhibition are not indulgently ornate or regal. The tables are modestly stylized so that each is afforded an uncanny presence on the wall. The encapsulating canvas becomes a window into a realm not yet known, but seemingly occupiable or once occupied. Matranga’s slight personalization of the furniture in effect provides the viewer with enough legroom for an extended cognitive relationship with the work. It is not difficult to imagine the tables and chairs belonging to a household or bar, but to probe into which location permits a more individualized and existential manner of understanding each painting’s delineation of space.

These works are more than simple studies of objects. However, Matranga seems less interested in developing a critical apparatus for the medium of painting, its market supremacy, and its constant rejuvenation amidst the genre-specific impasses of art history. Rather she has developed a method of image making that is uniquely figurative and conceptual; by adjoining form and concept she generates a multiplicity of connotations and narratives.

In this reflexive area for seeing and understanding, our attention is vital. This attachment to the viewer remains conspicuously evident in the snakeskin pattern which sets the interior for many of these paintings. Matranga has crafted a body of work that gains sustenance from the value and meaning produced by the psychology of the viewer. Our comprehension feeds the artwork as the painted scaly backgrounds encircle us, squeezing out from our hearts and minds, our emotional and philosophical responses.

Marc Matchak, 2022

Quintessa Matranga (b. 1989, New York) lives and works in San Francisco. Recent solo exhibitions include What Pipeline, Detroit; Sandy Brown, Berlin and Queer Thoughts, New York. Selected group exhibitions include Karma International, Los Angeles; Pilar Corias, London; Carlos Ishikawa, London and Bureau, New York. A forthcoming exhibition of paintings will be presented at The Meeting in New York later this year.

Learn more at whatpipeline.com and see Matranga's past work here.