Justin Matherly (b. in 1972 in West Islip, NY, USA) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. His sculpture Sunrise was presented in the Unlimited sector of Art Basel. His work has been extensively exhibited such as in recent years with KÖNIG GALERIE, Berlin, Germany (2013, 2015) at the Josef Albers Museum, Bottrop, Germany (2018), with Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich, Switzerland (2020) and Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, USA (2021).

In his work, Justin Matherly’s large-scale cast and concrete installations are inspired by historical artifacts. Using antiquity as a starting point, Matherly creates his own visual cosmos through the reinterpretation of statues, reliefs, or columns. The constant, paradoxical shifting is allegoric of the kinetic nature in Matherly’s work: meaning and source are molten, and each degrades as the final composition takes form through a decidedly flexible casting process. “Matherly approaches his work as a kind of forensic cavity search,” an ARTFORUM article reads, hinting toward the artist’s work process, which is a matter of working from the inside out. An array of soft materials, such as malleable Treegators (slow-release watering bags for foliage), allow for an additional element of chance in reference to the specificity of the carved form crafted from industrial Styrofoam. Matherly’s initial forms are usually carved out of XPS insulation foam and then cast in concrete, gypsum, fiberglass resin, or other contemporary materials. Instead of creating a smooth surface, Matherly leaves traces of the production process, thus evoking a contrast to the flawless perfection that is commonly associated with ancient sculpture.

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JUSTIN MATHERLY