Matthew Cusick: Rendition

Holly Johnson Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of Rendition, an exhibition of recent collage works and altered book pages by Dallas artist Matthew Cusick. An opening reception will be held September 12, from 6 - 8 pm. The exhibit continues through November 14. Rendition is the artist's first solo show with Holly Johnson Gallery.

In his newest body of work, Matthew Cusick expands his use of collage materials to include security envelopes, medical records, insurance bills, comic books, and old discarded texts. The work is informed by the antithetical double meaning of rendition, a word that now describes a government authorized abduction, extradition, and interrogation as well as an act of artistic interpretation or representation. Using a strategy of redaction and disclosure, Cusick extracts and reconfigures fragments of information into compositions that examine personal and cultural identity, fanaticism, and persuasion. Focusing on sources as diverse as the Topkapi Scroll, paratroopers, the Abrahamic religions and Conan the Barbarian, Cusick weaves a cryptic mesh of references into depictions of an ethereal world rendered by its own ideologies.

Cusick's process involves the dissection, archiving, and reconstruction of maps, bibles, textbooks, engravings, and other related printed matter. His meticulously crafted collages are informed by both the contextual and formal characteristics of the material he employs. The seamless, inlaid surfaces of his collages encompass densely layered references to the complexity and vulnerability of the human condition.

Matthew Cusick's work has been exhibited internationally since 1996, including solo exhibitions at The Columbus Museum of Art, Pavel Zoubok Gallery, Andrew Kreps, and Kent Fine Arts. He holds a BFA from The Cooper Union ('93) and a MFA from Southern Methodist University ('13). Cusick was the recipient of a NYFA painting fellowship in 2006, The Bemis Center for Contemporary Art residency fellowship in 2008, and the esteemed LUX Art Institute residency in 2013. His work is held in numerous public and private collections including the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, The Nasher Sculpture Center, the Progressive Art Collection, Texas State University, and The International Collage Center. Cusick's work has been written about extensively in publications such as Art in America, Boston Sunday Globe, Glasstire.com, National Public Radio, Semigloss Magazine, The Dallas Morning News, The New Yorker, The New York Times, and The Paris Review.