7 - Lyons Wier Limited - Straub

MATT STRAUB

I'm Hit. But I Can Make It.

January 7th - 29th, 2011

Artist's Reception:
Friday, January 7th, 2011 from 6 - 8pm

Lyons Wier Limited, 175 Seventh Ave, (@ W.20th St.)
Nearest Subway: C, E to 23rd St., or 1, 9 to 23rd St.

Business For the Undertaker, 2010. Oil, spray paint & enamel on canvas, 52" x 54"

Born in Cheyenne Wyoming, Matt Straub spent his early years hitchhiking and hopping freight trains across the Western states. Straub reveals his deep nostalgia for the harsh landscapes of theAmerican West in his latest body of work, I'm Hit. But I Can Make It.

With a bold comic visual vocabulary and sensibility, Straub's paintings echo the period of transition between Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art. Featuring classic Western iconographic images of cowboys, cowgirls, guns andhorses, Straub's paintings and collages depict the humorous and violent narratives and sentimental mythologies of the American West - a landscape defined by melancholy sunsets, badlands, gunfights, outlaws and red-blooded heroes. His references include Hollywood Westerns and the Comics and Pulps of the 1940's-50's.

Straub's graphic and illustrative narratives combine characters and caricatures inspired by Western pulp writers and illustrators such as Zane Grey and Raymond Kinstler and film directors John Ford and Sergio Leone. The paintings' varied surfaces resonate with affinities to artists such as William De Kooning, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Sigmar Polke and Brice Marden.

Straub's work also looks under the hood of the present day reality of the American West, with its concrete plains and Mini-Mart cowboys-places where the buffalo used to roam. Straub tackles the highs and lows of society with a comic visual vocabulary and a bold, fresh Pop Art sensibility. His Pop-Westerns are like graffiti splattered box cars rolling across the plains, their nostalgia a metaphor for a vanishing West.

Matt Straub has lived in Chicago, London, and Berlin. He graduated with a BFA from the University of Illinois in 1979. This is his second solo exhibition with Lyons Wier. He currently resides in New York City.

Trouble Ahead, 2010. Oil, spray paint & enamel on canvas, 22 x 22 inches

For more information and images, contact:

Lyons Wier Limited

175 Seventh Ave (@W.20th St.)

Tel: 212 242 6220 / gallery@lyonswiergallery.com

Gallery Hours: Mon. - Sat. 11 - 7pm
www.lyonswiergallery.com

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