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STATEMENT
Driven by history, faith and fantasy I embrace a spiritual devotion to the ritual of art making pounding images into the surface with common tools and materials. Worked repetitively until the material becomes the content- recording and processing stimuli to craft a dense diagram of layered historic pictorial references to navigate. The most recent episode of painting is an ongoing series of mixed media and collaged landscapes that focus on Staghorn Sumac, a roadside pioneer plant often seen growing in the tree line along the way.
BIO
Matthew Hanna is not driven. He drives. He drives a whole community of artists and arts organizations - so nimbly, so magically, most don't recognize his impact. He's the man behind the curtain, pulling levers, creating thunder, making things seem effortless, look beautiful. He's great and powerful, the wizard of art: making it, showing it, installing it, lighting it, packing it, moving it, thinking about it, talking about it, living it, loving it. Of course, he'd be the first to say he's no wizard, just a guy making a living. But we know differently. For over two decades, Matthew has been there for Detroit art: he's charmed us with his home-spun, subtly brilliant exhibition concepts; he's been a tireless under-the-radar activist for art and artists; he's been the muscle behind some of our most important art spaces; he's produced some of Detroit's smartest art; he's carried our work to points beyond; and he never says no. Even with a flat tire, five deadlines and a dollar in his pocket, he'll be there for us, with quiet fortitude and the next great idea. He's the Detroit art community's Professor Marvel. And don't you forget it.
- Michelle Perron, Director Center Galleries
ESSAY
Matthew Hanna is an intuitive colorist whose heavy application of deeply colored pigment, clotted blood-red on trees and dripping deep-brown down branches, are reminiscent of the Post-impressionists or German expressionists. They also have an illusory Old and New World effect, as if they could easily be seen on stained glass in a European chapel, or in the window of a hot Manhattan gallery in the 1950s. Because of this, there's a sense of permanence in his abstract scenes. Forget looking at them; you want to live forever in them.
-Rebecca Mazzei, Arts and Culture Editor Metro Times
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
SouthWest Artist Network
OUR CREATIVE LIFE
Lady Bug Gallery
1250 Hubbard Street
Detroit, Michigan 48209
May 2-July 31, 2009
GALLERY HOURS: Fridays 5-7PM & Saturdays 12-6PM
VIDEO LINK BY GILDA SNOWDEN
VIDEO PART TWO BY GILDA SNOWDEN
Actual Size Preamble
Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit
5141 Rosa Parks Blvd
Detroit, Michigan 48208
May 8-July 3, 2009
Actual Size Preamble is just that; a preamble to one of Detroit's favorite shows, 2009 Actual Size Biennial (opening November 2009 with Preamble opening Friday, May 8, 2009). Every two years since the first one with detroit contemporary in 1999, Actual Size Biennial has dazzled and amused, surprised and enthralled, engaged and dangled hundreds of small works by over 250 of some of Detroit's most creative emerging and established artists. 2 generations of artists come together to exhibit on the same walls side by side for one important testimonial exhibition to Detroit's great wealth of creative diversity and genius.
Actual Size Preamble features 10 artists who were invited only 2 week prior to the opening to create one work each with a dimension of 4.25" x 5.5" with no Hugh Timlin's 2007 Actual Size restriction to the 3rd dimension. Actual Size Preamble will open with a public reception on May 8, 2009 from 6pm to 11pm. Featured artists will include Sandra Cardew, Mark Dancey, Maurice Greenia, Jr., Matthew Hanna, Tom Humes, Robert Quinten Hyde, Melissa Machnee, Michael Mikolowski, Oneita Porter, Jo Powers, Robert Sestok and Gilda Snowden. The exhibition and reception are free and open to the public. The exhibition will run through July 3, 2009 in the first floor gallery. For further information please e-mail or phone the CAID at info@thecaid.org or (313) 899.CAID (2243).
COLLECTED
COLLECTIVE EXHIBITION
ANTON ART CENTER
125 Macomb Place
Mount Clemens, Michigan 48043
May 15-June 28, 2009
“Collected” features work from Metro Detroit’s active art collectives, including Debt Collective, GOD Club, The IP Collaborative, Moving Walls, Slippery Weasel Society, Superior Belly and Tiny Circus.
An artist collective is an initiative that is the result of a group of artists working together, usually under their own management, towards shared aims. This is an exhibition for collectors and artists alike. Collected highlights the importance of artists working in free cooperation with one another to raise the profile of arts in Michigan. Each participating group demonstrates the diversity and strength of work being created in their area.
Jeanne Bieri, Carl Butler, Mary Fortuna, Matthew Hanna, Andy Krieger and Arturo Rodriguez will install “Weasel Camp” a collaborative work under the Slippery Weasel Society.
There will be live music from members of GOD Club and Superior Belly with a special performance by Beverly Fresh from 10 pm to 1 am, Friday, June 19, 2009. Admission is free, but attendees must be 18 or older with proper ID.
For more information, call the center at 586-469-8666 or visit www.theartcenter.org. The Anton Art Center is open Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday, 10 am to 5 pm; Friday, 10 am to 6 pm; and Sunday, 12 noon to 4 pm. The center is closed on Mondays.
The Anton Art Center, the hub for the arts in Macomb County, is located in historic downtown Mount Clemens on the southeast corner of Southbound Gratiot Avenue (M-3) and Macomb Place. Convenient public parking is located in the adjacent Roskopp Parking Lot. For more information please visit www.theartcenter.org.
COMING EXHIBITIONS
RECENT EXHIBITIONS
RHUS TYPHINA L.
SOLO PAINTING EXHIBITION
MAJESTIC CAFE
4120 Woodward Ave
Detroit, Michigan 48201
May 7-29, 2009
ANNUAL SCHOLARSHIP AWARDS AND EXHIBITION
Featuring College for Creative Studies scholarship finalists, faculty and alumni
DETROIT ARTISTS MARKET
4719 Woodward Ave
Detroit, Michigan 48201
March 13-April 18, 2009
VIDEO LINK BY GILDA SNOWDEN
VIDEO LINK BY model D
WHAT MATTERS MOST...
in the Arts Center's Exhibitions without Borders series
JOHN MICHAEL KOHLER ARTS CENTER
608 New York Ave
Sheboygan, Wisconsin 53081
November 9, 2008-February 15, 2009
Year of the Weasel
SLIPPERY WEASEL
SOCIETY EXHIBITION
Featuring Arturo Rodriguez, Carl Butler, Jeanne Bieri, Jerome Ferretti, Mary Fortuna, Matthew Hanna and Todd Erickson
THE SCARAB CLUB
217 Farnsworth
Detroit, Michigan 48202
January 3-February 15, 2009
VIDEO LINK BY GILDA SNOWDEN
VIDEO LINK:Music by K-9
LAIR-CRAFTS
New work by Matthew Hanna and Todd Erickson
COLLEGE FOR CREATIVE STUDIES
CENTER GALLERIES
ALUMNI AND FACILITY HALL
301 Frederick Douglass
Detroit, Michigan 48202
November 8-December 20, 2008
VIDEO LINK BY GILDA SNOWDEN
ROCKY FORD DAY
This Week in Art
MOTOR CITY BREWING WORKS
470 West Canfield
Detroit, Michigan 48201
December 3, 2008
VIDEO LINK BY GILDA SNOWDEN
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