Matthew Kirk: Do What You Can January 8–February 5, 2022

Adams and Ollman is pleased to announce an exhibition with Matthew Kirk (b. 1978, Ganado, AZ; lives and works in Queens, NY) on view in our project space January 8 through February 18. The exhibition, organized in collaboration with FIERMAN, New York, will consist of a selection of new wall-based weavings.  

In a new series of wall-based assemblages, Kirk wryly interrogates Native American visual culture and his relationship to his Navajo heritage and identity. Using industrial materials such as strips of tar roofing paper woven through commercial steel fencing, Kirk approaches the history of Navajo weaving through a personal and practical lens. The surface of each is marked with abstract symbols, glyphs and doodles that form an evolving and improvisational lexicon with shifting meaning. 

The largest work of the group, There’s a Flood Stronger Than a Church, features a symphonic array of symbols and motifs that weave in and out of one another, often repeating in rhythmic patterns or congealing into larger forms. Graphic shapes and lines energetically intersperse with familiar forms of houses, birds, human figures, and trees to form a narrative tapestry of memory and identity, past and present.

Matthew Kirk (b. 1978, Ganado, AZ) lives and works in Queens, New York. Kirk has had solo and group exhibitions at FIERMAN, NY (2021 and 2018); Halsey McKay Gallery, East Hampton (2019); and Louis B. James, NY (2012, 2015) and in 2019 was the recipient of the Eiteljorg Museum Fellowship for Contemporary Native American Art. His work is in the collection of the Eiteljorg Museum, Indianapolis, IN; Everson Museum, Syracuse, NY; OZ Art, Crystal Bridges, AR; and the Forge Collection, Tagkanic, NY; among others.

Works

Matthew Kirk
There's a Flood Stronger than a Church, 2021
hand cut tar paper, wire mesh, acrylic, oil, cotton, brass grommets, blue tacks, staples, wire
72h x 73w in
182.88h x 185.42w cm
MK2021002


Matthew Kirk
Feeling Like Fleeing, 2021
hand cut tar paper, wire mesh, acrylic, oil, cotton, brass grommets, blue tacks, staples, wire
24h x 24w x 1 1/2d in
60.96h x 60.96w x 3.81d cm
MK2021001


Matthew Kirk
Lasting Impact, 2021
hand cut tar paper, wire mesh, acrylic, oil, cotton, brass grommets, blue tacks, staples, wire
28h x 28w in
71.12h x 71.12w cm
MK2021003