Psychedelic Distortions Streak Across Bold Paintings

From digital glitches to mind-bending distortions, Mexico City-based artist Alexis Mata is interested in how visual information gets lost or skewed as it shifts from one context to another. In his oil paintings, bouquets and vast desert landscapes spread across the canvas as if melting or stretching into unrecognizable forms. “When your eyes look too long at the same thing, your mind makes the change,” he shares.

Mata excavates the relationship between analog and digital realms, and his process incorporates both modes of artmaking. Preliminary sketches fill notebooks that travel everywhere the artist does, while he continually snaps photos and records video as references.

Rendered in bold color palettes, the trippy paintings draw connections between digital mishaps and the ways our brains warp an image, whether in moments of intense focus, dream states, or with the help of hallucinatory substances. “I like to think that entire worlds are created within dreams, and these worlds ask to be brought into the light,” he says.

Many of the paintings shown here are on view in Fata Morgana through January 25 at The Hole in Tribeca. Explore more of Mata’s work, which spans stained glass and textiles to drawing and sculpture, on his websiteand Instagram.

I am sure some of you know Austin Kelon? and

This week he said ... "Dead week approacheth!"

Since I was thinking this but he has already said it better, I am quoting.

“Dead week” "is the no-man’s land between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. I used to dread this time of year, but now I look forward to it as a time when nobody really expects much of you & nothing you do really matters that much. It’s a great time to rest, recover, and relax."

(He has more insights and humor that I think you might enjoy, here.)