VISUAL ARTS + MUSEUMS

Rudolph Blume Fine Art/ ArtScan Gallery presents Matthew Bourbon: Our Splendid Defeat + Kevin Bell, on view June 5 through July 3.  Opening Reception Saturday June 5, 6 - 8pm.

Rudolph Blume Fine Art / ArtScan Gallery unveils a new exhibition of paintings by Denton’s Matthew Bourbon. In his exhibition Our Splendid Defeat, Bourbon creates a fractured narrative world within his paintings where humans are "existentially detached from one another." The masked figures within this world are defined by abstracted shapes and lines and are trapped within bourgeois, domestic settings.

Matthew Bourbon writes:  The San Francisco Bay Area is my orginal home. Having spent most of my youth in a city south of San Jose, I moved inland to the Sacramento valley where I earned separate undergraduate degrees in Studio Art and Art History from the University of California at Davis. Studying with Wayne Thiebaud and Squeak Carnwath had a significant impact on the development of my art. After graduating from UC Davis and a stint living in San Francisco, I relocated to New York City, where I earned a Masters of Fine Arts degree from the School of Visual Arts. Since then, my art has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Recent solo exhibitions include Conduit Gallery, Crass Cruel and Uncouth, Dallas, Texas and Studio 107, True Fictions, Austin, Texas. Currently I am an Associate Professor of Art at the University of North Texas.  I am also a regular contributor to ArtForum Online, Flash Art, ArtNews, New York Arts Magazine and Artlies.

Kevin Bell grew up in the Pacific Northwest. He earned a BA in history from Bowdoin College, studied for a master's degree in environmental studies at Evergreen State College, and in 2002 completed an MFA in painting from University of Oregon. His paintings have been exhibited nationally and internationally, and he is currently represented by Gallery Jones in Vancouver B.C. He is Editor of FATE in Review, a national journal dedicated to college-level art pedagogy.

Kevin teaches art at The University of Montana in Missoula, where he lives with his family.