The Transit Gallery is hosting a new show by Matthew Varey called Prayer Paintings. Priti Kohli and David Brace, the co–owners of the gallery, have featured Matthew Varey’s work in the past. “Our response and commitment to Matthew Varey’s work has to do with a unique quality in his vision. There is a strong sense of awareness of material in the work, for example, in the way that the pigments work with and play with light, colour and texture. It is abstract painting that evokes emotional responses to the work itself. Varey’s work appeals to us as an exploration of and meditation on beauty,” the co–owners say of their support for this young (in his 30s) but established artist.

Varey grew up in the Hamilton area, and completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts from McMaster University in 1992. He has shown internationally and continues to work as a dedicated artist. His work has evolved through the years, maintaining similar themes: pursuit of beauty, visually textured images, the incorporation of various perspectives shown simultaneously (micro and macro), ecological/ environmental awareness and, of course, the use of
colour as a dominant factor.

The Prayer Paintings are part of a larger body of Varey’s work known as “Blueprints of the Universe.” Varey explains: “The Blueprints of the Universe reveal that everything in nature repeats itself on every scale—images from satellites, veining in leaves, a human nervous system, a river drainage basin, cracks in lake ice in the dead of winter, the channel of gases to the earth’s crust, arteries and veins under skin. To me, this indicates that
all dilemmas can be broken down and solved using patterns traced through less complicated problems. The blueprints are both details and views from great distances, and that is part of the delight of living. The Blueprints are answers of a sort; code keys to the relation between things by being both close up and far away at the same time. “People will ask” the artist says “what is this, and how is this made? I think of these paintings as somethings, something complete and whole within its own rules and conditions. The Blueprints of the Universe are tools for understanding.” These prayer paintings are providing visual clues to understanding life’s structures and systems in a holographic universe style.

During the SoHo style opening at Transit Gallery, I scanned the comment book for people’s comments about Varey’s work, to see how others understood these paintings. This one stood out…“Perhaps prayer is a pulse, a heartbeat, a vibration, a common resonance that reverberates inside us all.” (Written in the comment book at the gallery by Matteo Ciavarella.)

Varey remains secretive when questioned on the creation of these paintings, since he discovered this unique technique of blending pigments. He does however give a vague response, “The process is a meticulous and strategic combining of all the necessary elements, which I then set into motion, selecting the moments to intervene, and selecting the moment to stop the action of the work’s evolution. The result is a unique, photographic–esque image that someone once called abstract photo–realism.” There could be a lesson in this, when making a prayer, perhaps we need to let go of ‘how’ a prayer will happen, and just let it happen. We don’t need to understand how Matthew Varey created these paintings in order to benefit from their offerings. “In my mind,” Varey reveals, “I hold a vision for a future that involves the creation of a place of wonder. I want a community of culture and sympathy to exist because of the quality of the idea itself, the creating and allowing of its existence so untainted that it occurs without resistance. In this place I see thinkers, those with awareness and insight, people of substance and people with interest in the world, experience, observations, phenomenal critical acuity and the energy to initiate change.”  The artist’s own words seem most potent in this case—sometimes you need to let the source speak for itself to bring clarity. Let that be the offering. V

MATTHEW VAREY
Prayer Paintings
Through May 30
TRANSIT GALLERY
230 Locke St. S.
905.522.1299