Tobey Fine Arts, New York, NY, 2007
Matthew Deleget approaches the concept of reductive abstraction with a pluralistic approach. While reductive art is generally characterized by its use of plain materials, limited color, geometry or pattern, precise craftsmanship and intellectual rigor, his definition of reductive art is "anything and can be about anything". His works incorporate painting, process art and installation in a direct, matter-of-fact manner that eschews gimmickry and novelty and absorbs, digests and reacts to concepts and experiences we are confronted with in our daily environment.
Kat Griefen, Material Matter catalog, Sideshow, 2007
Material Matter also addresses the flawed yet common assumption that abstract art avoids political or social commentary. "From Bad to Worse to Truly Terrible" speak to this notion. The components of Matthew Deleget's piece — gently curved circular canvases — sugget black holes, bullet holes, or something else sinister.
Simon Baur, "Martinez und Deleget: Farbgepräch", Basler Zeitung, April 20, 2006
Matthew Deleget zeigt seine grosse 32-teilige Wandarbeit "Red, Red, Red, Redder than Red". Alle Mittelteile der querformatigen Blätter wurden mittels Roller mit Kadmiumrot eingefärbt. Horizontale Streifen am oberen und unteren Blattrand sind mit dem Pinsel in einer weiteren Farbe bemalt. Der Titel der Arbeit is einem Song Bob Marleys entliehen. Das Rot hat soghafte Wirkung; es schmerzt den Blick, erinnert an die grelle Sonne des Südens, ist für die Künstler aber auch die Farbe von Brooklyn, von wo die beiden herkommen. Skulpturale Malerei und Interaktion der Farben sind ihre Themen. Durch die Reduktion auf wenige Formen und Farben, mit denen die flexibel, erneurnd und dialogisch umgehen, gelingt ihnen eine logische Weiterführung der abstahierenden Malerei.
Stephen Maine, "Painting Presentation", Artnet Magazine, April 7, 2006
But application is forthright in the work of Matthew Deleget, whose ongoing "Case Study" series, started in 2003, consists of four-by-four-foot paintings with a rolled-on ground color, and four smoothly brushed, twelve-by-twelve-inch squares in a pungently contrasting color, like brick red on aqua, or hot orange on a profoundly deep blue. They are deployed across the surface like tiles in a board game, in some cases giving rise to additional squares as negative shapes.
Gabriele Evertz, Presentational Painting III catalog, Hunter College/Times Square Gallery, 2006
Matthew Deleget uses the positiveness of the geometric sign to lure us into the familiar territory of architectural recall only to suddenly immerse us in fields of unusual hue selections that are not necessarily informed by color wheel organizations, and perplexing figure/field reversals.
Abbey Ryan, Presentational Painting III catalog, Hunter College/Times Square Gallery, 2006
In works from his Case Study series (2005), Matthew Deleget creates reductive paintings loosely modeled after the forms, designs, and concepts of the avant-garde, architectural Case Study House (CSH) program (1945-1960). The CSH program represents America's most significant contribution to mid-century architecture and continues to have, to this day, influence as a reductive yet experimental system for innovative design and constuction. Working with acrylic on unprimed wood and smooth linen, Deleget builds up his surfaces with colors to create what he calls "painted structures". After these "painted structures" are created, he then makes visual adjustments. These works reflect an interest in pattern, geometry, and architecture, referencing domestic elements sch as swimming pools, driveways, rooflines, and terraced gardens. With attention to structural design and form, Deleget draws from personal experience and nostalgic reflections to create work that has a low-tech, visceral quality. Deleget creates what he calls "social abstractions." His paintings are not only inspired by the CSH program as it relates to popular culture today. On a deeper level, it is his belief, made evident by his evocative titles such as Case Study - Heathen (2005), Case Study - Villian (2005), and Case Study - Outsider (2005), that his work can also be understood as indicative of a critical, analytic position.
João Ribas, Minimalisms catalog, Dinaburg Arts/Gallery W 52, 2006
"...Also geometrically rigid are the paintings of Matthew Deleget, which are partly influenced by minimalist architecture. By organizing his compositions according to precise relationships, Deleget builds a visual vocabulary of remarkable clarity and rigor that still bares the sense of color vital to abstract painting."
James Kalm, "A Boom Grows in Brooklyn", The Brooklyn Rail, July-August 2004
"...our neighborhood's
own 'advocates of Minimalism' Rossana Martínez and husband Matthew
Deleget..."
Christy Goodman, "Stay 'Home' for Intriguing Modern Works", Brooklyn Arts 24/7, March 1, 2004
"The David
Allen Gallery features the work of Charles and Ray Eames, known for
their modern furniture designs, that combine style, art, and usefulness.
The artists, who worked from the 1940s to 1970s as a couple serve as
an inspiration to Martínez and Deleget, who are showing together
for the first time in ten years.
Most appealing to Deleget and Martínez was the Eames' "Case Study House #8," where their own home was meshed with their studio and was built on principles of low-cost, yet high-design.
"They had this great idea for their exhibition to incorporate aspects of the gallery, as we are a home and furniture retailer," said Amy Schmersal, gallery manager. "Matthew and Rossana admire them and take a lot of inspiration from them. They are exploring what to live and work in a space together as a couple is."
Included in "Home" will be two spatial installations by Martínez and Deleget's Case Study House series. Both involve a strong use of color and incorporate a sense of architecture to their designs. While Martínez's focus is more on urban home and planning using materials found in the home, Deleget's idea is the home using geometric painting.
"We have been working together in the same studio. We usually work at the same time. We really share this space and also while we are creating or thinking about possible works we are always communicating and talking to each other," said Martínez.
She described their home as a laboratory where they live with and install their artwork, as well as other fellow artists' work. Each piece is almost a puzzle that fits into the framework of the house.
"We are combining all these things and making it, like a balanced way of living," she said.
Deleget added, "Our vision of all of this is to really be holistic. We envision the artistic project individually and combined."
He continued, "It is an experimental ground for creation. We really look to the Eameses as sort of a roll model for that. They thought about things holistically — their home and are are one."
They explore what home means here and internationally, as well as what it means to critique and curate each others work.
Living in Brooklyn is also an added benefit to these artists' idea of home, as there are so many different artisans and craftspeople in the borough at this very moment.
"Brooklyn is a tremendously creative and vibrant city. We are really invested in this community," said Deleget. "So one of the things is identifying ourselves as Brooklyn people, Brooklyn artists inventing ourselves in the community."
Taking this idea of what it means to be American, using utopian high-end design and high-art, "Home" brings this message to the masses — something that began with the Eameses.
Artist from around the world who share these ideas with Martínez and Deleget have taken part in another curatorial, critical project on www.minusspace.com.
The site features essays, works and critical reviews of more than 30 artists exhibiting in the international community."
Terrance Lindall, "The Epistemological Movement in Late 20th Century Art: The Williamsburg Circle", New York Arts Magazine, February 2002
"Deleget
does drawings. To begin, he hovers over the blank paper and prepares
his mind. He focuses and envisions (as an example) the fabric of space
as a map of grids for reference points. Space without reference points
is, of course unimaginable, except in the state of meditation where
being and nothingness become one. Space appears to be warped according
to the physicists. Matthew Deleget, however is dealing with conceptual
space, a classical Kantian world where reason is imposed upon the world
giving it order. Putting pen and ink to paper Matthew expresses with
elegance what his mind has created. He does this with colors and patterns
which suggest the calm elegance of mathematical thought, the unperturbed
pure world of essences and closed systems of pure reason, a priori analytic
thought...a world unto itself totally unaware of other worlds. To view
Matthew's work is to be drawn into this rarefied beauteous world. The
question arises in critical circles: has intelligence replaced beauty?
Not here, beauty abounds! Reneé Dumal wrote of Mount Analogue
and Matthew has envisioned it's peak: "Oh high, remote in the sky,
above and beyond successive circles of increasingly lofty peaks, lies
the utmost pinnacle of Mount Analogue. There, he who sees each thing
accomplished in its beginning and in it's end resides unto himself.
The "art" for both Deleget...is as much the "act" of creating it as is the product itself, perhaps more so."
Fratiska and Tim Gilman-Sevcik, review of exhibition Bridges, d.u.m.b.o. arts center, Flash Art, Summer 2000
"Matthew
Deleget evokes the decorative leanings of Agnes Martin and Sol Lewitt
with a grid of white geometric drawings on black paper..."
Holland Cotter, review of exhibition 20 Years of the Artist in the Marketplace Program, Bronx Museum of the Arts, The New York Times, May 12, 2000
"Several
artists seen in the exhibition are worthy of mainstage attention, among
them...Matthew Deleget. Some have gone on to bigger things. They all
look good here. And they are all part of an important history."
Holland Cotter, review of exhibition Line, Arena@Feed Gallery, The New York Times, May 12, 2000
"Matthew
Deleget threads strings of silver hyphens across a black ground to create
a kind of radiant, handmade Minimalism, at once rigorous and personable."
Edward Sozanski, review of exhibition Drawing Rules, Gallery Joe, Philadelphia Inquirer, April 9, 1999
"Matthew Deleget also makes grids,
but his are alphabetic. Block letters laid onto grids according to various
plans produce subtle patterns created by the different letter shapes."
Review of exhibition Mapping Space, Old Church Cultural Center, The Press Journal/North Edition (Englewood, NJ), January 7, 1999
"Matthew
Deleget's paintings and drawings reflect his interest in infinite universal
spaces, creating detailed patterns to describe them."
Holland Cotter, review of exhibition Artist in the Marketplace, Bronx Museum of the Arts, The New York Times, August 14, 1998
"And
drawing takes a bow in Matthew Deleget's radiating Op-artish abstractions..."
Dr. Nancy Holland, Adjunct Professor of Art History, Drew University, unpublished review, July 1998
"With
a poetic ransacking of the universe, Matthew Deleget uses his images
to erase the boundaries between the physical, psychic, and spiritual
experience. Deleget's premise is that the material universe is knowable
only through pattern, i.e. form and proportion, rather than through
matter, i.e. particles or quanta. In other words, shape and harmony
define the universe, rather than units or quantities. Pattern and configurations
combine to create a new level of understanding about the energy and
structure of infinite space in the universe. His Cosmic Volume, of 1998,
is an example of the cosmos perceived as form and proportion. Using
silver metallic ink on black handmade paper, Deleget evokes a cosmic
construct that is at once compact and airy, pristine and brilliant.
His Red Cosmic Temple, also of 1998, adds subtle organic variation to
the effects of light, color, and pattern. The vivid color of his Stellar
Radiation, of 1998, creates a spectacular burst of energy that is both
vibrant and intricate."
TCHADA: Theory, Criticism and History of Art, Design and Architecture, Pratt Institute, Spring 1998
"Matthew
Deleget, along with six other graduate Fine Art students, took part
in the five-week Fine Arts Symposium in which each student formally
presented their art work to the student body and faculty at Pratt by
mounting a group exhibition, accompanied by slide presentations tracing
their backgrounds, artistic development, and the concepts behind their
work. For the following four weeks, predominant art critics conducted
formal evaluations of the students' work...Peter Schjeldahl likened
Matthew's drawings to "tantric wallpaper" or "apocalyptic
interior design."
Joydeep Sengupta, review of Wabash Alumni Exhibition, Eric Dean Art Gallery, Wabash College, The Bachelor, October 30, 1997
"Undoubtedly
the most interesting and innovative artist in the group is Matt Deleget
'94. Deleget experiments with space and the underlying symmetry of emptiness.
The viewer will be struck by the sense of depth and space that the artist
is capable of achieving in his works. Deleget's imagination ventures
into the implicit, unseen "structure of space," a realm where
invisible patterns create an abstract framework around emptiness. Working
mainly with ink and handmade paper, Deleget uses simple recurring patterns
to create three dimensional space. There is a sense of vastness and
a taste of infinity in his works, the pure harmony of a simple periodic
wave.
While painting is an intensely personal experience, focusing on minute blocks of space and ensuring their uniformity reflects Deleget's phenomenal ability to pay close attention to miniscule detail, not unlike a deeply personal meditation. "Pattern in my work," says Deleget, "is a mapping device used to make visible the underlying unseen structure of space. Together, the patterns form a greater lingua cosmica."
One is struck by Deleget's ability to use repeating patterns with such profound visual effect. According to Deleget, the sensation that he seeks in his artistic journey is the feeling of "creating, infinite, undifferentiated space." From sets of concentric circles to the ordered geometry of intersecting straight lines, Deleget's works bring forth a calm harmony, the comfortable certainty of a mechanical universe with carefully engineered parts. These works seem to combine the classical geometry of medieval scientists with the abstract indefinite chaos of postmodernism, a truly commendable achievement...His work is sublime, like an uplifting prayer - beautiful, harmonious, and worth of admiration.