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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
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
Opening Reception: November 7, 2008 6-8:00pm
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
COMING EXHIBITIONS
ROCKY FORD DAY
This Week in Art
MOTOR CITY BREWING WORKS
470 West Canfield
Detroit, Michigan 48201
ONE NIGHT ONLY-December 3, 2008 8pm-Midnight
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
Opening Reception: January 2, 2009 6-9:00pm
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