Christen Mattix

Mattix, a painter and MFA student at the San Francisco Art Institute, makes paintings that contemplate what is closest to us: a bird's nest found in the back yard, a mother rat and her young, the part in a woman's hair. She concentrates the viewer's attention on extraordinary images from the "ordinary" world. Her primary concern is to find a still point with which to engage life's flux. That still point gives meaning to chaos, revealing a mysterious beauty in its organic messiness. Mattix "wants to make work that moves my viewers and me without lapsing into sentimental slush or meaningless chaos." About her paintings of dead birds she says, "I thought a long time about how to make a contemporary pietà for a secular audience. I wanted to tap into that deep feeling-compassion and grief-expressed in a traditional pietà but in a way that would move all people, not just Christians."

Contact Christen at rumagoo@yahoo.com; one painting can be seen at www.timlowly.com/c/ru.jpg.

Part, 2004. By Christen Mattix. Oil on canvas, 16" x 24".

Cradled, 2001. By Christen Mattix. Oil on panel, 48" x 72".

In Weakness, 2001. By Christen Mattix. Oil on panel, 48" x 60".