Weinstein Hammons Gallery is pleased to present SILVER, an exhibition of sixteen unique works by the internationally renowned artist Matthew Brandt. The works will be on view starting Friday, November 12th. This will be the artist’s second solo exhibition with the gallery. 

SILVER is comprised of two bodies of work in which Matthew Brandt uses experimental processes to reconstruct two traditional genres in photography: landscape and portraiture. Using science, experimentation, and a bit of magic, Brandt’s artistic practice continues to be inspired by scientists’ invention of photography in the early 19th century. SILVER is the last exhibition of 2021 to mark the gallery’s 25th anniversary, and fittingly so, since the metal is often associated with quarter century celebrations. 

Brandt began working on the silver tree images in 2018 when he was in Minneapolis for his first solo exhibition with the gallery, Gold Medal. Taken at the Murphy-Hanrehan Park Reserve, the source images were then transformed through the process of being silverized, an inherent element to traditional darkroom black and white photography. The end result is a stunning obscured image that has an overall reflective effect, allowing the viewer to see themselves as they are looking at the work. 

This exhibition also presents Brandt’s portraits of acclaimed female authors throughout history. The portraits in this exhibition include Maya Angelou, Louisa May Alcott, Emily Dickinson, Toni Morrison, Sylvia Plath, Susan Sontag, and Edith Wharton. He begins the process by turning sourced images to silk screen prints and then carefully applying molten type metal from a century old typesetting technology. Through this fitting and appropriate process, the portraits become a tactile, three dimensional object. Time and time again, Brandt uses physical materials to push the boundaries of what a photograph can be. 

Work by Matthew Brandt is in the permanent collections of Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Brooklyn Museum, New York; Art Gallery of South Wales, Sydney, Australia; Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond; Cincinnati Art Museum; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Royal Danish Library, National Museum of Photography, Copenhagen; and the Columbus Museum of Art, among others. Brandt was born in California in 1982, received his BFA from The Cooper Union in New York and his MFA from UCLA. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles.

Weinstein Hammons Gallery remains deeply grateful to our artists, colleagues, and friends who have been supportive over the years.