Reading Between the Lines with Sculptor Matt Devine

Matt Devine turns to art as a place to create order among the dissonance of the man-made, internet-centered world. Brought up in Massachusetts, where he developed a disciplined work ethic, Devine moved to San Diego at 18, and has since immersed himself in West coast architecture, design, and lifestyle. Getting his first taste of sculpture while working as a furniture maker, he eventually turned to sculpting full-time, drawn to the the meditative escape he found in this work.

Citing Richard Serra and Alexander Calder as major influences and describing himself as “a Minimalist at heart”, Devine creates meticulously networked wall pieces, gravity-defying freestanding forms, and large-scale public works, alternating between metal finishes and vibrant color palettes. His works originate in a process where he creates a unit, replicates it, and joins the identical units to create a singular, interconnected form.

Devine’s upcoming show at Madison Gallery, is an “expansion” of his work thus far, and an opportunity he has taken to create a deeper relationship between his wall pieces and freestanding forms. In reference to the new show’s title, “Between the Lines”—which is a joint show with painter Jeff Kahm—Devine explained that “to me, the negative space is almost more important than the piece itself,” emphasizing that he hopes viewers quite literally look between the lines that his works present.

A centerpiece of the show is a new freestanding sculpture, 15th Street, an abstract wave form made from oval tubes of chrome, a new medium for the artist. Wanting to use chrome for some time, it seems like an act of fate that Devine came upon 2,000 feet of the material in a junkyard. Changing his process slightly in this work, Devine used four different lengths of the chrome tubes, which he found offered him new depth and variation. 15th Street references a surf break that the artist has begun to frequent in the past few months, and is an expression of the therapeutic solitude he finds while surfing, much like the meditative escape he finds in his art, and offers to others.

We offer a selection of Devine’s sculptures, as well as in-progress images of 15th Street, courtesy of Madison Gallery.

“Between the Lines” is on view at Madison Gallery, La Jolla, California, Feb. 15th—Mar. 15th, 2014.

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