Still from Some Things Hidden (2020)
Some Things Hidden / Some Things Undone
New Work from Anderson Matthew
February 27 — April 11, 2021
Grainy, atmospheric, and always dream-like, the image-based works of Anderson Matthew conjure feelings of longing for unnamed states. Some Things Hidden / Some Things Undone presents a selection of films and photography completed over the past year, and is the LA-based artist’s first solo show. Matthew’s use of analog camera techniques with Super 8mm and 35mm film lends nostalgia and tactility to his queries into nature, queerness, race, and belonging.
Shaped largely through precision editing and ambient scoring, pathos is always present — as well as remnants of the documentary impulse, however faintly it survives. Created for tele- art magazine, This Is A Call (2020), for example, combines surrealist stop-motion with raw and very real reflections on whiteness from Matthew’s friends and peers in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd. Some Things Hidden (2020) plays like a warped home video verging on fairytale, an artifact of a hike the artist took with his parents. Represented in this show by three small photo stills, dei notturni splendori (2020) is an experimental film commissioned by the Staatsoper Stuttgart that finds mezzo-soprano Helene Schneiderman performing in a dream theater with only herself as the audience.
LA-based artist Dylan Zarate / DNZ frequently collaborates with Matthew; they are muse and composer for the dizzy, ecstatic Everybody Dies (2020), and appear as a mysterious being in the Apocalypse Veil (2019/2020) photo series. In both still and moving images, Zarate’s existentially weighty performances are simultaneously constructed and deeply vulnerable.
Taken as a whole, Matthew’s blurring of myth-creation and documentation gently uncovers a trove of abstract questions: how do intimacy and environment interact? What types of truth can we expect our senses to find? What remains hidden? When does a given experience take on the aura of memory? And is it different for someone who always has a frame in their eye?
—Rachel Elizabeth Jones
From the Apocalypse Veil series (2019/2020)
Anderson Matthew is an American artist and filmmaker. His work centers around multiplicity of perspectives and queer experience. He is the writer and director of the feature film BAJA COME DOWN and creator of Deviant Proposals: An Anti-Binary Journal published by Candor Arts. His film work also includes short, experimental and documentary projects which have shown internationally across Europe, Australia, North and South America. He is co-creator of Shadow Kitchen, a Los Angeles filmmaker collaborative, and co-creator of the LA Cinema Calendar. He holds a BFA from Chapman University. andersonmatthew.com / @and.matthew
Featuring collaborations with:
Dylan Zarate // DNZ is a multimedia artist currently residing in the Greater Los Angeles area. Their work focuses on the transience of identity and the boundaries in which one exists, presenting these concepts through an absurdist lens. They work primarily in sound, image, and video, but sometimes as model. As soundscape creator, Zarate creates under the monogram DNZ and is currently working on their debut album, “Dramaturgy,” to be released in 2021. informationandentropy.net / @dylanzarate
Leanna Kaiser is an experimental filmmaker and musician living in Los Angeles. vimeo.com/holymatter/ / @holymatter
Rachel Elizabeth Jones is an artist and writer based in LA. She launched Flower Head in the garage below her apartment in 2020. rachelelizabethjones.com / @ratbabyjones
Flower Head would like to thank Mark Ayala for his invaluable assistance installing this show.