When I reviewed Matt Donovan's last exhibition at Olga Korper, I proclaimed his wall-hung Op Art sculptures a model of formalism despite his medium being Lego blocks. However, he’s thrown that theory off kilter by making his current exhibition all representational. To make matters worse, it’s all flat too. None of the three-dimensional shadow play of the previous work is here; all you get is a rehash of the pixilation of blown-up images that seem to be things from a distance, but turn into random dots up close. It's a long familiar optical effect that's been with us since Seurat and is most familiar in mass-reproduced newspaper photos or electronic media like TV screens and computer animation. 
Matt Donovan, Ants, 2015, Lego
This trick can work with any image (Chuck Close has done it with portraits) and Donovan knows enough to choose content that reflects his self-awareness of the formal gesture he's playing on. Swarming insects serve as his metaphor for the visual field that is frozen and then expanded until the artifice of the image is revealed. From across the room they are ladybugs, ants and bees, but standing beside them, these works are of nothing. That's the funny unfunny thing about them. Once you get up close, they lose any sense of identity as you lose focus and there's nothing meaningful to be found there. Sure, the artist’s process is evident: he selected pictures then processed them then mapped them out according to a grid and then reassembled the grid. But unlike a painting where the artist’s hand is revealed at an intimate distance, where a next level of micro-detail comes into view, here proximity just leaves you cold. Dead cold. Inhumanly cold. Swarming insect cold. 
Matt Donovan, Ladybugs, 2015, Lego
I'm not sure who would buy these things though I'm sure people buy them – perhaps a graphic design firm or a software company. You need a space big enough so the viewer can get far enough away (maybe that’s the underlying message: Stay far away!) Insects are the most machine-like creatures in the animal kingdom and they represent unthinking consumption and reproduction on a gigantic scale. It’s not what anyone (except Gordon Gecko) would call comforting. I can see one of them in a loft-condo opposite a flat screen TV mounted in symmetry, but I worry for the emotional well being of the person who lives there. I hope they understand the lie they've committed to. I think the artist gets it and I think, like all medicine, it's a bitter pill to swallow.
Olga Korper Gallery: http://www.olgakorpergallery.com/
Matt Donovan: Pixel in the Swarm continues until March 12.
Terence Dick is a freelance writer living in Toronto. His art criticism has appeared in Canadian Art, BorderCrossings, Prefix Photo, Camera Austria, Fuse, Mix, C Magazine, Azure, and The Globe and Mail. He is the editor of Akimblog. You can follow his quickie reviews and art news announcements on Twitter @TerenceDick.
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Matt Donovan at Olga Korper
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