Matthew Weinstein


28 April - 19 August 2012

Mint Museum of Art

Mint Museum Uptown at Levine Center for the Arts

 

 

Weinstein in his studio, November 2011                                  photo by JWeaver

 

Matthew Weinstein, a visual artist currently living and working in Brooklyn, NY, has achieved notoriety in the art world as the first artist to focus exclusively on 3D animation. Beginning with a self-written dialogue or lyrics, Weinstein uses musical scores and written text to develop characters which he then renders using animation software. Weinstein casts actors for the dialogue, and musicians to create a soundtrack for his virtual environments. Using precision airbrush techniques and single-hair paintbrushes, Weinstein also creates paintings, essentially abstractions of his animated worlds. These paintings accompany the digital installations and enable the artist to explore the often-tenuous boundary between the real and the virtual in contemporary culture. The Charlotte Symphony Orchestra has commissioned Weinstein to create a digital accompaniment to debut with their performance of Maurice Ravel’s Bolero on May 4, 2012.

 

The Mint Museum has organized a spotlight exhibition of Weinstein’s work, including four paintings and two animated films. Weinstein’s film Chariots of the Gods features a mechanized female koi, voiced by the late Tony-award winning actress Natasha Richardson, dangling from a golden chain in an empty restaurant. While she meanders through her environment with a smiling disposition, she discourses on such weighty subjects as the future, devolution, technology, aliens, and the impossibility of progress. A second film, Cruising 1980, is an homage to writer-director William Friedkin’s iconic “Cruising” (1980).

 

     

Chariots of the Gods from Matthew Weinstein on Vimeo.

 

 _________________________________________________________________

 

Created by Sarah Bost, Mint Museum Library Intern