1275 Minnesota St /
Nancy Toomey Fine Art
Matthew Picton: The Age of Kali
Artist Reception | Saturday, January 9, 2022 | 3:30–5:30 pm
Matthew Picton, in his exhibition The Age of Kali, has created a stunning body of hand-cut mixed media works filled with vitality, historical context, precision, and depth. Through the collating of images and the collapsing of time, dynamic representations of divinity are placed in the present, synthesizing coincident visuals of apocalyptic longing and salvation. Adding weight and power through scale and imagery, Picton explores the many manifestations of contemporary hybridized images of the past, religion, and culture, one in which the viewer can find their own recognition of the patterns of history.
Picton’s highly original visual narrative, in which images of gods and monsters are overlaid with topographical data of the various cities he profiles, paints a historically poignant picture that articulates the shameful brutality of imperialism and the impact of the colonial project on the values and anatomy of the ancient world.
Picton, an English-born artist who came to Southern Oregon by way of the San Francisco Bay Area, says his work is “inherently political, in that it aims to present in visual form the hidden truths of history.” As such it deals with sites and municipalities where complexity and historical conflict are the order of the day. His work depicts places where the architecture of empire continues to cohabit with the remnants and shadows of the ancient civilizations upon whose ruins such authoritarian dreams are founded.
Picton’s works connect the biblical prophesies described in The Book of Revelations with present day climatological and geopolitical anxieties. His art also alludes to the underlying forces of nature that in some senses predict and shape events. Through a process that cuts and reconstructs the drawings of Durer, imagery is combined and superimposed in each work. Durer’s drawings of religious rhetoric are folded in to the histories of Western and Eastern teachings. Within these excavated traditions, gods, demons, and angels populate our inner landscapes of persecution and salvation. Those symbols of divinity would intersect and be manipulated to combine with the post-Columbian history of power and domination. The art of the 16th century, with its death and mortality obsessions, is re-imagined to reflect our present-day apocalyptic fears that permeate our everyday lives and digital landscapes. Kali is also revered as the goddess of creation and is as much about life as it is death; both Eastern and Western teachings reflect the duality of life.
Kali Yuga in Hinduism is the fourth and last of the four world ages (yugas), each lasting thousands of years. The Age of Kali is believed to be our own cycle of rampant discord. Preceded by Dvapara Yuga and to be followed by Krita Yuga, the arch of the Age of Kali is believed to be completed by 2070, a timeline that loosely parallels Christian history since the birth of Christ, one that has encompassed fantastic beauty and dispiriting savagery.
The Age of Kali is Matthew Picton’s first solo exhibition at Nancy Toomey Fine Art.