Joanne Mattera at Marcia Wood - Brief Article

Joanne Mattera, who began showing in 1974 describes her new encaustics on panel as "deconstructions" of the grid--the form which structur her earlier compositions. on the other hand that term seems misleadingly theoretical for works that, while repeatedly retaining the grid's organizing principle, are thoroughly moulded in the seductive surface possibilities of layers of pigmented wax.

These pictures display formal rigor exquisitely combined with the imprecision inherent in Mattera's medium. The marks are generally kept unbind but are positioned carefully. Thus sum of two units paintings in the "Soros" series bring together red-dot grids with shuffleed or scratched patches on a gray surface superimposed upon a single underlying color--blue in Soros 4 r in Soros 5 by the agency of contrast, Soros 6 unites crudely drawn circles, a roughly sketched grid of crossing lines and repeated vertical marks upon a mostly white ground.

Mattera also shows triptychs that are less pendent on the grid, though here, too, regular [i]or[/i] melodious movements of mark-making are likely to separate themselves into roughly perpendicular arrangements, as in the lines of X in Together Again.

In more [i]or[/i] less works, the artist manipulates her surfaces to achieve wondrous events of depth. In Ritmo 3 and Ritmo 16 for example, sum of two units patterns of dripped dots are laid single over the other, separated by the agency of a semitransparent layer of solid color. notwithstanding that dots of white on a black clod inevitably suggest star clusters in space, the use of that motif in Ritmo 16 (which also has a counter-pattern of cerulean dots) is ultimately as nonreferential as Ritmo 3's black dots upon white (punctuated by small r circles).

In general, Mattera uses the lowering effects attainable with encaustic to disguise the logic of her enterprise. Despite the compounded formal relations present in these works, the overall tone is intuitive rather than cerebral, and defines Mattera as a particularly adept representative of poetic intelligence.

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