Inner Tropics
Sarah Mattes

 
KDR305 presents Inner Tropics, featuring new paintings and drawings by Sarah Mattes. Mattes’ paintings allude to sequences in the daily life of early motherhood of identical twins. After moving with her young family from New York to Miami in late 2019, the connection between the warm  intensity of the tropics and motherhood became clear. The works express the joys and struggles of parenting through a pandemic. 

In the painting, Maternal Landscape, she depicts a hectic breakfast scene complete with a breast pump strung across the table, leftover bites, coffee awaiting plunging, and a wall with swipes of food from tiny hands. The compositions share viewpoints; through a window, to her daughters, into the landscape, in the present, and towards the future. They encapsulate a snapshot of a re-lived experience and memory of a place or moment. The brightly-colored framed drawings portray split-second freezes like locking eyes with a cat in a garden or a snake in a sunbeam and capturing the light that shines through trees burning plant shadows onto the earth. 

The works are a narrative of calm moments in a heightened sensory experience, both as a mother and the landscape surrounding her. She transmits the feeling of motherhood, a moment in time that is naturally extreme and, most times, full of beauty.  

SARAH MATTES ( b. 1984 )
Solo exhibitions include Byers Gallery, Columbus College of Art and Design, Columbus, OH; Mason Gross School of the Arts, New Brunswick, NJ; Stene Projects, Stockholm, Sweden; Roos Arts, Rosendale, NY; Bull & Ram Brooklyn, NY. Performances at Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, NY; The Judson Church, New York, NY; 356 Mission, Los Angeles, CA; Regina Rex, New York NY; Colgate University, Hamilton, NY; Underdonk, Brooklyn, NY. She received her MFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University in 2015, after which she attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. She has taught at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Columbus College of Art and Design, Colgate University, Hamilton College, and Pratt Institute. 

KDR305 is a contemporary exhibition space housed in a 102 yr old cottage in the heart of Little Havana, Miami, FL. The exhibition opens Sunday, May 1, 2–5 PM. Rideshare is encouraged as there is little public street parking. For images, information and appointments, please contact katia@kdr305.com.

Image: Maternal Landscape, 2022, Acrylic on canvas 16 x 20 inches