EXPO CHICAGO 2019

JONNI CHEATWOOD

Jonni Cheatwood is a Brazilian-American visual artist working across many different disciplines including painting, photography, graphic design and textile art. Cheatwood’s work describes the broad visual ideas stemming from still life, abstraction and minimalism, but his approach is a wonderful amalgam of his artistic disciplines in which veritable scraps of canvas are hand-sewn together before his idiosyncratic mark-making is thereafter applied to the newly created surface. Denim, mesh, burlap sacks, t-shirts, blankets, t-shirts, screen-prints, and even his father’s worn leather satchel have all made their way into his work at one time or another. The graffiti-like scribbles, scratches and primitive colours of Cheatwood’s work is the controlled chaotic work of an erudite expressionist brought up on Saturday morning cartoons; suggesting deconstructed contour lines and bright, unforgiving primary colours often applied directly from the tube or oversize pastel. Beginning with direct marks, squiggles and doodles, Cheatwood reacts and builds up his compositions over time, working with the studio detritus that can build up as a result of working on the floor and from the physical nature of his process – allowing this to become part of his formation of the work. The many references housed in his work – whether intentional or unintentional – seem like a patchwork of Cheatwood’s own autobiography – and the works come across like humorous albeit highly personalized recollections of his life at various times.

JONNI CHEATWOOD (b. 1986, Thousand Oaks, CA) lives and works in Los Angeles, California. He graduated from Arizona State University, Tempe, in 2011. Solo exhibitions include: Galerie Dutko, Paris, France (upcoming); Urban Spree (residency), Berlin, Germany (upcoming); That’s Dallas Baby, Artual Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon (2019); Dressed Up for the Letdown, Over the Influence, Hong Kong, (2018); She’s Heavy on the Razzmatazz, Makasiini Contemporary, Turku, Finland (2018); Same Hero, New Boots, TW Fine Art, Brisbane, Australia (2018); Strange to Meet You, Tappan Collective, LA (2017); Don’t Life Your Heroes up so High, Palabra, Phoenix AZ (2015); and Alysian, Prohibition Gallery, Culver City CA (2014). Group exhibitions include: Seven Days Are Too Long, Mirus Gallery, Denver, Colorado (upcoming); The Atlantic Bridge, Galerie Kremers, Berlin, Germany (2019); Office Hours, New Museum, Los Angeles, California (2018); View From the Cheap Seats, Chimento Contemporary, Los Angeles, California (2018); The Urban Experience, Artual Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon (2018); FRESHAF, TW Fine Art, Brisbane Australia (2017); and Buy What You Love, Rema Hort Mann Foundation, New York NY (2017). Cheatwood first exhibited with BEERS London for the group exhibition 75 Works on Paper (2017), and exhibited at Volta NY with BEERS in March 2018.

MILO MATTHIEU

Striking in both colour and composition, Haitian-American artist Milo Matthieu’s works are collages built with layers of paint and paper. Originally having studied photography, his experimentations with pre-existing images as source-material open up new realms of possibility for the artist; aside from a process that permits his works to grow organically, the use of readymade imagery allows him to pay homage to artists who have come before. The resulting works are hybridized, almost Frankensteinian, often textural and three-dimensional, especially when viewed from oblique angles. These are works that seem to come alive as the viewer moves around them, bringing to the fore a sense of vitality and energy referencing a manic expressionism and sense of materiality. Each piece is dense with texture the inclusions of textiles and collage, perhaps suggesting the formation of identity as ‘a sum of parts’. Each artist is also inherently influenced by the city that surrounds them, creating organic compositions that – not unlike Picasso and Bracques style of Cubism, that constantly evolves over time, reshaping with each movement and each visitor before them. Furthermore, for Matthieu, race becomes a dominant issue and relevant factor within the work, where words like ‘coloured’ are scribbled across the canvas, or representations of African Americans as vaudeville-like or with ‘Golliwog’-type smiles glimmer from starkly black backgrounds. Inspired by music, from doo-wop to contemporary rap, the artist’s sense of musical-awareness and movement flows through the works with a kind of urban sysnesthesia. On one hand, a reference like Kandinsky does not seem entirely displaced, but the work houses such a contemporary, young, even ‘cool’ appearance that they seem to cull from different eras of history, culture, and identity – which is probably not totally unlike Matthieu as a young black man living and working from Brooklyn, creating work for a society consumed by rapid-succession imagery, a culture of ‘Instagrammable’ material, and a proliferation of inspirations, resources, and influences.

MILO MATTHIEU (b. 1990, Los Angeles, USA) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. After graduating university with a degree in photography, he has exhibited his works nationally and internationally. Recent exhibitions include: Rum Room New York, Dean Collection, Dream Midtown, New York (2018); Beauty in the Unknown, Medium Tings, New York (2018); Av-Ve-Rez, Myuz Unveiling, PRVT VW, New York (2018); Danger To Society, Sincerely, Tommy, New York (2018); and Volume A, Colonia Nova, Berlin, Germany (2017). In September 2019, Milo will be exhibiting at Expo Chicago with BEERS London alongside painter Jonni Cheatwood.