Art for war’s sake
BY Derek Rosin
“War,” says 29-year-old Toronto artist Matt Bahen, is “the most intense level of human interaction.” Bahen has been painting war-related images since he was a student at the Ontario College of Art & Design, which he graduated from in 2002, as a way of exploring themes of “justice, human interaction and the influence of the media.”
Bahen’s work, which he describes as political but not partisan, frequently presents the after-effects of fighting: burning cities, refugee camps and corpses—a reflection of his interest in the human toll and trauma resulting from war.
Several paintings juxtapose Wild West cowboys with modern snipers equipped with thermal viewfinders, which Bahen says is a commentary on the shift from face-to-face fighting to the impersonal hightech reality of modern warfare.
In his American Music series, he superimposes images of U.S. military aircraft overtop of scrawled pop music lyrics. This combination of today’s killing machines with what Bahen calls “the literature of our era” is interesting, if unnerving.
Matt Bahen’s next major exhibit will be at the Moore Gallery in Toronto in December 2008. His archived work can be seen at www.mattbahen.com.
