Matt Connors Mysterious Leap
In Mysterious Leap, Matt Connors presents a new series of large and small-scale paintings alongside related drawings, continuing his sustained inquiry into the mechanisms of painting and image-making as an intricate and ongoing process of translation. While rooted in direct observation, his compositions simultaneously draw from a varied network of references, reflecting a fascination with the process of re-shaping and translating images into what he has referred to as ‘image-idea.’ The exhibition title derives from Sigmund Freud’s concept of the ‘mysterious leap’¹ —the unfathomable transition between mind and body, the slippage between unconscious and physical states. “Ideas in psychoanalysis can have echoes with those in painting. Both start from a place of unknowing, letting patterns and networks arise, discovering and finding,” he notes. Connors approaches painting as an act of discovery—where patterns and structures emerge, unexpected connections take shape, and meaning is continuously encountered, materialised, reshaped or unfolded.
Connors takes a generative approach, creating works that are interconnected yet visually distinct. The works in the exhibition vary in format, technique and colour palette. Some paintings are relatively sparse, while others are densely layered and vividly expressive. In art and music, generative systems refer to compositions that evolve over time based on a set of guiding principles. More recently, the term has been linked to artificial intelligence, where computers recognise patterns in data to generate new text, images, or videos. Connors’ practice bridges historical and contemporary ways of creation, engages with the challenges of abstraction, and the evolving role of painting today.
The paintings in Mysterious Leap draw inspiration from a diverse array of sources, ranging from Clarice Cliff pottery and the cover of 1964 US edition of Paul Valéry’s Monsieur Teste (1896) to everyday observations—a window, a kite caught in a tree, floor tiles, and a child’s toy. Valéry’s Teste offers an interesting parallel to Freud, as its protagonist devotes his life to examining his own thoughts, in pursuit of pure consciousness. The book’s experimental, fragmented and nonlinear style defies the conventions of the traditional novel. Similarly, at the core of Connors’ practice is the challenge of translating an idea or a fragment of reality into paint. Rather than aiming for faithful reproduction, he uses source material as a catalyst for generating something entirely new. His process relies on visual ‘systems’—shifts in scale and perspective, replication, mirroring, inversion, tonal and chromatic transformations, layered compositions, distortion and disruption. Geometric shapes and recurring motifs—circles, squares, tiles—along with rhythmic and sequential arrangements, function as both structuring and destabilising forces. Ultimately, the resulting image asserts its own reality, independent of its origins.
This interplay between structure and openness reveals the poetic undercurrent of Connors’ work. The autonomy of the image and its ability to generate its own meaning parallel the nature of poetry—a term derived from the Greek poēsis, meaning ‘making’—where the aesthetic and rhythmic qualities of language evoke meanings beyond the literal or superficial. A similar dynamic emerges in Connors’ work, each composition exuding a sense of openness, suggesting that every painting contains an element of possibility, inviting simultaneous interpretations and leaving room for continuous transformation.
¹Der rätselhafte Sprung von Seelischen zum Körperlichen.
Matt Connors (b. 1973, Chicago) lives and works in New York and Los Angeles. He was included in the 2022 edition of the Whitney Biennial, Quiet as It’s Kept, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Recent solo exhibitions include Finding Aid, Goldsmith CCA, London (2024, also curator); Invert, Lismore Castle, Waterford, Ireland (2022). Group shows include Le Consortium, Dijon (2018); Kunstmuseum Bonn (2015); MoMA, New York (2014) Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2013); MoMA PS1, New York (2012), Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Germany (2011). In 2015, Matt Connors was a resident at the Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas. In 2012, he published the award-winning book A Bell is a Cup.
