Stephen Mathewson nimmt uns mit auf eine Reise mit ungewissem Ausgang. Noch ist alles offen. Pathos und Banalität sind hier miteinander ebenso verwandt wie Abenteuer und Langeweile. In Erwartung des Endes der Pandemie ist das Hotel nun zum Sehnsuchtsort geworden, dessen Schein endlich die Flucht vor dem beschränkten Sein ermöglicht. Das Fenster des Hotels - ist es ein Zimmer mit Aussicht? Nur noch ein schnelles Glas Wasser und dann… Als brillanter Erzähler entwickelt Stephen Mathewson Geschichten von Bild zu Bild und (ent-)führt uns mühelos in die Irre…

I’ve checked in again.
I got there when it was already dark. There was no trace of what had happened in the room beforehand, except that on the table there was a mistakenly left behind police report...and an upside-down empty glass on a paper doily. The imagery in these paintings begins here.

Opting for water, I turn over the clean glass, fill it up and empty it. It’s been a long day’s travel. I could use a walk. Enter the landscape at night, it’s like a small town within a city, or even a neighborhood. It’s that small. Everything walking distance. Same faces, a river, music flowing out windows. Colors impress me most at night. Rain makes the night’s colors even more striking. Wet colors are always better, but the color of water is the best.

In this case, like drops of tinted brown water coming from a leak in the roof, making the rings of ripple in a container, images drop from mine. The ripple distorts that of the previous. Unlike water, they quickly manage to get back up and drop...again and again. Each time with another dent or layered blemish. The focus blurred; the moment of misconstruation, hence directing the eyes like fingers to feel and rub, touching the smooths and the grainy. The tactile will remain where the colors fade in time.

As I complete the loop of my expedition, its final stretch... lights, scratch, start the motor, feel the ride. Maybe I am just hearing it. Maybe I am locked in the trunk, kidnapped. Soundbytes between consciousness. Flash. Another piece of paper, a checklist. Paint over the checklist. Climb the spiral staircase and lock the door behind me.

“Such meditations reflect an egalitarian approach to the fantasy of adventure as well as the lonesomeness of the stranger’s travel. Deadpan about his own transience, Mathewson’s winning amusement permeates his work to reveal the predicament of the inconnu - or the pathos of the characters that frequent his drawings: ice-hockey players, musicians, truck drivers, etc.” Lia Gangitano

Stephen Mathewson (* 1962 Evanston, USA) ist vielseitig: Musiker, Eishockeyspieler und -trainer, Maler, Comiczeichner, Barkeeper und Erzähler. In seinen jüngsten Arbeiten konzentriert sich auf Geschichten, die von alltäglichen Beobachtungen ausgehen und schließlich in Öl und Graphit auf Leinwand, Papier oder Holz umgesetzt werden. Zudem arbeitet er im Zoom Kindermuseum und der Internationalen Sommerakademie für Bildende Kunst in Salzburg.