Kadar Brock and Matt Jones both push their materials to their limits.

Although they each treat their materials in different ways, they set up very specific conditions in which the physical and chemical properties of the paint and canvas determine the final outcome.

In the case of Kadar Brock’s paintings, the products are a result of a long process of adding and subtracting. The works shown at Horton Gallery are old paintings of his that he has scraped and sanded until holes begin to form on the surface of the canvas. He knows to stop the process when he can tell that the canvas can’t be reworked any more without disintegrating. The old works have been given a new life, but they show the wear and tear; they are “undead”. Time plays a different role in the paintings by Matt Jones. All of the work in the show is brand new and was created in Berlin in the Horton Gallery space. These “energy paintings,” as Jones calls them, are created like monoprints in which Jones has minimal control over the outcome. He tries to set up certain conditions based on his knowledge of the chemical properties of his materials, but once the materials have been brought together, what happens is beyond the artist’s control. Brock’s paintings are to Frankenstein’s Monster’s skin as Jones’s paintings are to the “scary stuff in the woods.”