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The Hole is pleased to present Sunsets, Matt Belk’s first New York solo exhibition. Belk creates landscape paintings that portray the natural world through an uncanny gaze with a complexity and precision that belies the distinction of real and imagined.

With nine new paintings and a decoy duck sculpture, Belk continues his fantastical depiction of rural America and the flora and fauna encountered in the sport of hunting. Each painting contains a setting sun or rising moon and the exhibition design breaks up the gallery into afternoon, sunset and evening. A sockeye salmon is carried off by a hawk as the sun starts to descend; pink spoonbills wade in the dusk as the last orange leaves the sky; constellations appear overhead and on the dark surface of the water as the moon begins to rise.

Using airbrush, tape and X-acto knife, Belk layers plants, animals and unexpected guests with precision and wit. Giving image to the wild using a digital aesthetic, Belk hand-makes compositions that contain two worlds in crisp contrast: above and below the water line. These realms merge reality and fancy as cars drive underwater and Canada geese mix with cacti above, or a tiny volcano erupts next to a wading mountain lion.

These paintings are more animal portraits than paintings of prey. Each animal's face holds expression and emotion, often staring right back at the viewer, we see side eye from a duck and an inquisitive deer giving “what are you looking at?” And the fish! Many with human faces and human eyes staring, they smile coyly, gape blankly, smooch and get carried off by predators. 

Based in Omaha, Nebraska and raised hunting, Belk brings lived experience to his paintings. A painter of prowess without the traditional art world training, Belk simultaneously makes art and trains hunting dogs. He notes politely the occasionally condescending nature of the city folk, and from his outside-the-artworld position chooses to make his work more playful, inviting and accessible to those who may be unfamiliar or dismissive of the culture and history of hunting.

Matt Belk (b. 1988, Omaha, NE ) received his BFA from the University of Nebraska. He first showed with The Hole in 2022, in Manscaping in New York, Los Angeles and at Superzoom in Paris.  He had a solo booth at NADA New York in 2022 and has shown at fairs internationally including, Taipei Dangdai, Zona MACO, Art Cologne and NADA Miami. Following Sunsets his first New York Solo Show Belk heads to Blidö, Sweden for a residency with Carl Kostyal Gallery.

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