“Castellain Gallery is pleased to present REFRACTION/DIFFRACTION, by Matt Scheffler. The exhibition includes two distinct bodies of work, Subterranean Hyperspace and Study in Blue No. 1, and marks the artist’s first show dedicated entirely to the materiality of the photographic medium. Featuring a multimedia sculpture and cyanotypes from 2018, the exhibition will showcase the artist's experimentation with light, motion, and procedure.”
Study in Blue No. 1 is an investigation by the artist into the procedure behind photography. Exploring the idea that a photograph is not taken, but made, Scheffler highlights the scientific and chemical process of the medium while simultaneously embracing the randomness of variables like shadow, light, and time. Capturing the effects of non traditional materials like glass and water on canvas, paper, and drywall, Scheffler transforms each surface into both a camera and its exposure, made without a shutter in real time. The outcome is a marriage between what the artist initially thought the image might look like, and the physical happenstance of the procedure: a crystallization of the unforeseen.
