Art Lies, Volume 31, Summer 2001 Page: 64
84 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Matthew Sontheimer
Remarks
DUNN AND BROWN CONTEMPORARY
DALLAS
by Sara-Jayne ParsonsIn his first solo show in North
Texas Houston-based artist Matthew
Sontheimer presented a tight collection
of new drawings and site-specific works
that reflected his consistent interest in
the variety of handwritten expression.
Tracing elements of an invented, private
alphabet based on his father's signature
(a practice he has been experimenting
with for several years), Sontheimer has
begun to create secretive, impenetrable,
cursive missives that demand close
inspection.
Like forms of ancient writing, the
translation of Sontheimer's works relies
on privileged knowledge. If asked, he
will decipher the drawings for you,
breaking down the forms into words.
Resist temptation! Shortcuts to clarity
and an insistence on literary compre-
hension will miss the quiet urgency that
emerges from these drawings; a serious-
ness that revolves around Sontheimer's
recent preoccupation with elements of
correction and revelation. The latent
quality of this gesture was perhaps the
most intriguing and potent aspect of the
exhibition. For it is not what was written
by the artist that is significant, but
rather what was thought and written,
and then erased, revised, or obscured
from view that matters.
Nearly fifteen feet in length and
around five inches high, Handled, an
acrylic drawing on Mylar, commanded
attention. Here coded text was lifted
from the privacy of a printed page and
enlarged into a rhythmic banner. At the
opposite end of the gallery and similarly
proportioned, Speaking into a Well was
drawn directly onto the wall. From a dis-
tance it is invisible and gallery lights
appeared to illuminate an empty white
wall. Upon closer inspection one could
follow a small handwritten trail marking
eye level across the width of the wall; a
barely visible blue ink trace was all that
remained of text that had been carefully
painted over with Liquid Paper. The last
64 ARTL!ES Summer 2001few inches of the text,
in defiant red ink,
remained visible. It was
not the details of what
Sontheimer said here
that really mattered, but
the echoing reverbera-
tion of how he attempted
to say it.
Sontheimer's inves- --,-. -
tigation of the process of
correcting or re-marking
could also be seen in sev-
eral smaller, bookish ,
drawings. Myself Cuffed o "
Hand's inky strands of
coded blue text were
intersected and cor-
ralled by long arrows of
punitive red ink, as if
the writer's thoughts had
been reshuffled on paper.
Looking closely, one sees
small spots of dried
Liquid Paper at the tips of the arrows,
ghostly marks highlighting the will of
the artist/editor. In the case of Erased
Fortune the correction of the script
became an obsessive feat of copy editing.
Sontheimer scored and excised the text,
leaving behind a distressed, fragile paper
surface that looks transparent and skele-
tal. The echo of the removed narrative is
a shadowy genetic trace, the remains of a
family history as it might have been
drawn on Plato's cave wall.
Others work contained corrective
or non-textual remarks. Drawn on
Mylar, Self-Correction, is a series of blue
ink text paths surrounded by areas of
delicate crosshatching in red ink. Blue
punctuation marks are encircled in red.
Other small red dots are suggestive of
trails to be traced or negotiated, like
towns on a map. Similarly, Left Compass's
horizontal repetition of a single phrase
in blue ink is supported by a cluster of
tiny red circles and dashes, warnings of
difficult geographic terrain.The collective epiphany of
Sontheimer's new drawings is the
reassessment of his own voice. His coded
imagery is no longer simply a remnant of
his father's signature. He has begun to
subvert the precious coded language of
his earlier works, and so revealed slightly
more of himself, beginning to establish
his own epistemological framework with
the addition of cartographic elements.
The resulting works are poignant and
expressive self-deprecations. Remarks
revealed and reveled in the energy of new
possibilities for communication.
Matthew Sontheimer
Awake Water Garden, 2000
Ink on mylar film
Courtesy Dunn and Brown Contemporary-~ -~-~) L-- ,
"s,
."~yl
~;~ K
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Kalil, Susie. Art Lies, Volume 31, Summer 2001, periodical, 2001; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth228061/m1/66/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .