Amberger Zeitung May 08, 2006

"Amberg in Crisis - the old city center is dead"
American Matt Morris artfully considers the development of the City - Exhibition

by Marielouise Scharf

Amberg. The dragon of Saint George and the monstrosities that modern humanity has created - the pious legend and the brutal reality composed the American artist Matt Morris in his oversized Triptych “George and the Dragon” in an exhibition worthy of seeing at the Alte Feuerwache.

A long sword points across the work from right to left. It forms a line to other horrors: to a snake without a head or a tail, which is raised from a couch by a crane as if to make it available for slaying. Finally the pictorial line ends in a modern clinical world of concrete and machines, cleaned away of all nature.

“Art should be beautiful, but should also be a motivation to think or perhaps deliver a revelation.” With these words on Friday night at the opening reception explained Morris his objective. Until the 21st of May there is an exhibition of a selection of his paintings and collages under the title of “Neubau.”

Morris, who taught at California State University, has lived seven years in Amberg. On his honeymoon he became enamored with Europe and hoped one day to live here, explained the likeable artist to the Amberger Zeitung. In the Oberpfalz he feels comfortable. In the heart of the old city he lives and works.

But here he sees the many changes made clear in the sentence, “Amberg is in crisis, the inner city is dead.” With open eyes he takes these changes and reflects them in his very multilayered, very striking, and telling art. With many exhibitions in the USA and Europe he is a painter that is decorated with various awards and his work is attentive.

He utilizes and handles photography and painting well in his pictures devoted to diverse themes. The main point in this show is the relationship of “Nature and Technology.” Morris refers to the situation of the origins of the alienated world, which creates its own dragons. Narrative and close to nature, his pictures read like exciting reports: he takes the viewer with him, points out what to see and develops new ideas.