Playing in the SandBox

Paintings by Matt Rempel

"In principle a work of art has always been reproducible"

Walter Benjamin

Everyone has a childhood. It is axiomatic that this shared begining establishes a joint reference point between painter and viewer. Matt rempel's series of new paintings reunites us with the lost worlds of our imagination. This planet is circumscribed like the borders of a sandbox. Dump trucks, racing cars and tankers traverse the terrain. The painter invites us to step back into our memories and recall the castles we have built or the races we have won.

Rempel's multiple interrogations of the Dump Truck are like variations on a theme. This red and yellow object becomes a rock star in a way any icon or logo brands itself into the popular narrative. The truck, symbolic of power, is an earthmover forever terracing our collective landscape. His truck lets us fill up and dump out what we will.

His image of the semi-tractor trailer sits like a gray ghost in a neutral field. It idles humming in our mind, waiting to make a move. The viewer is left to speculate as to what cargo it is carrying.

The Shell gas tanker rests on the edge of darkness, searching for the next destination. We bring the tanker with us because even the logic of children has become cultured to our dependence on oil.

A gray cary with orange racing stripes speaks to our fascination with both sound and high speed contests around a track of our own creation. The joy of making noise is co-mingled with driving the car.

In an era where children are under a virtual electronic assualt from the computer, the pager, the cell phone, the game by, and the television, Matt Rempel gives us a moment to pause. With all of these images the painter recovers forms that evoke memories of our days on the playground or in the back yard. After all, the sandobox never needs batteries.

Steven Michael Vroom

September 2000