Louis Buhl & Co. is pleased to present Six Paintings in Detroit, the gallery's first exhibition with Brooklyn-based artist Matt Phillips, opening on October 26, 2024. The new body of work showcases Phillips' deliberate and tactile approach to painting, in which the artist's hand is an unmistakable presence in the construction of each piece.

Within his practice, Phillips employs a crude visual vocabulary of clearly defined shapes. Through a lexicon that is elemental- or archaic-seeming at its surface, the various forms have a surprising capacity to grow and compound upon one another to address a wide range of subjects. As the artist describes, “My aim is for my paintings to exist as rudimentary objects which nevertheless defy odds and approach the realm of poetry.” The paintings thrive in the tension between the static and the dynamic. In them, color, shape, and mark-making dissolve into a form of visual metaphor, and self-imposed restrictions paradoxically grant Phillips a greater level of freedom to explore a wide range of content. 

The act of painting for Phillips is an intuitive process, often beginning with quick sketches that serve as a form of problem-solving. His subjects range from the familiar to the elusive: the pulse of a heartbeat, the transformation of a seed into a sprout, or the process of water condensing as it rises into the sky. While rooted in concrete ideas, whether the viewer recognizes such narratives in the works is not Phillips’ concern. What is important to him is that the viewer catch a glimpse of the small yet transformational spark contained within each painting. This spark resides in the moment when the formal language of painting gives way to something that is at once lyrical, specific, and evolving—something that unfolds through time like a song. With each painting existing as an object of discovery, the exhibition creates a space to engage with their materiality and subtle complexity.

Matt Phillips: Six Paintings in Detroit is on view from October 26 - December 21, 2024 at Louis Buhl & Co.

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