Rob Matre Photographs and Paintings
Feb 1-April 20, 2024 | Haley Gallery
Albany native Rob Matre returns to The Albany Museum of Art with Gold Soundz, an exhibition of mixed-media paintings and photographs. The exhibition will serve as a retrospective covering the last 10 years of his Plaid Columns series, paintings often made in collaboration with artist Evan Jones, whose work was featured at the museum in a solo exhibition in 2014.
A selection of photographs made over the last 20 years will be on view, along with some new paintings made for this exhibition.
Matre’s photography exhibition Recent History was on view at the AMA in 2013, and his painting Third Avenue Oaks is on long-term loan at the museum. He also has worked with the Albany Area Chamber of Commerce on various art projects to enhance that organization’s promotion of the city.
In both his paintings and photographs, themes of place and memory run through Matre’s work. Scenes of Albany and South Georgia are recurring subjects, along with other images from the State of Georgia and beyond.
Matre’s love of sports also informs his work, with a focus on the game of golf. Since 2003, he documented professional golf tournaments and golf courses around the world, including many of the great links courses of Scotland and Ireland.
Albany serves as a launching point for Matre’s creativity. His lifelong interest in art started with his passion for music, specifically with the album art that was his first source of inspiration. The title of this exhibition comes from the opening line of a song by Pavement, one of his favorite bands, which beckons to the listener: “Go back to those gold soundz.” That line kept returning to him in preparation for this exhibition. The words played upon the notion of “going home,” as this exhibition can certainly be considered a homecoming of sorts.
