LEE MATERAZZI // ¢a$h&¢arry

On view March 2–April 7, 2024
Opening reception Saturday, March 2 (3–5pm)

Nationale is pleased to present ¢a$h&¢arry, Lee Materazzi’s inaugural solo show with the gallery. This traveling exhibition was recently presented in San Francisco at 1599ftd, with a future stop in San Diego at Quint Contemporary.

The 250 images taking over Nationale’s front gallery serve as an incomplete archive, as all archives do, chronicling the last five years of the artist’s practice. While varying greatly in scope, the overlapping bodies of work are all rooted in the space of the studio itself—which Materazzi shares with her children Mia and Brook—where it serves as both a constant and a site of flux; a witness to the palimpsest of a life in session. Between the three of them, the works on view were completed between the ages of 37 & 41 and 3 & 11, respectively.

In her portraits, Materazzi objectifies not just her body, but the precarity of its nature. Nipples, noses, knees, the small people she grew inside of her and the messes they’ve made on the ground are neither daft nor holy but both, simultaneously, in equal measure. Rather, there is something to be said about the reality of covering one’s body in green paint with the knowledge that you have to pick your kids up from school by 3pm.

Spanning the gamut from erotic to abject, the photographs and sculptures on view overlap with experiences of parenthood, divorce, the pandemic, the cultural amnesia that followed, and a standard sense of dailiness. Shared among them is a sense of urgency, a sensation that feels big and small at the same time—the way a paper cut throbs. Hovering between intention and accident, focus tests and iPhone pics, something that cannot be so contained lines the walls—a life’s work in progress, one that fits in the palm of your hand.

Lee Materazzi (born Fairfax, VA) from Miami, FL, and now living in San Francisco, CA, received her BFA from Central St. Martins in London (2005). Her work has been shown internationally in solo exhibitions at Blue Sky (Portland, OR), Eleanor Harwood (San Francisco, CA), Quint Contemporary (San Diego, CA), Spinello Projects (Miami, FL), and Gallery Poulsen (Copenhagen, Denmark); and group exhibitions at Naples Museum of Art (Naples, FL) and California Center for the Arts (Escondido, CA). It is included in numerous public art collections, such as The Margulies Collection at the Warehouse, The Scholl Collection at World Class Boxing, and The Pérez Art Museum Miami, where Materazzi was included in the exhibition, My Body, My Rules in 2021.

Exhibition text by Rel Robinson

PRESS & MORE
Curated Things to Do in Portland this Week, Matthew Trueherz, Portland Monthly, March 14, 2024
Recommended/Don’t Miss Visual Art Pick, Lindsay Costello, EverOut, March 1, 2023

IMAGES