Todd Gray: Portals
Perrotin, Los Angeles, US
Chason Matthams: Hardly at all and through and through
Union Pacific, London, UK
The final days of Hardly at all and through and through at Union Pacific in London are upon us—an exhibition of new paintings by Chason Matthams, marking the artist’s first solo presentation with the gallery. Based in New York and born in California, Matthams brings together geological time, cultural symbolism, and the history of image-making. From art historical references to alchemical subjects, Matthams presents painting in full force. And I was willingly seduced, in an instant.
At the heart of Matthams’s practice lies a sustained engagement with the material and metaphysical conditions of time. In this latest body of work, crystals and shells appear alongside vintage film cameras and art historical backdrops—motifs that are both highly specific and deeply allegorical. Crystals, in particular, serve as potent signifiers: objects associated with spiritual clarity and healing, yet formed over millions of years beneath the earth’s surface. The analogy that erosion evokes beauty is one I eagerly read into, supported by the eroded texture of Matthams’s exquisite brushwork. This contradiction—between the contemporary and a geological antiquity—becomes a point of departure for Matthams, whose paintings inhabit a temporal logic that is both cyclical and unstable. Matthams has long alternated between two central categories of imagery: the technical instruments of vision (cameras, microscopes) and organic structures (stones, shells, florals). Here, both recur—and with impact. His rendering of vintage and contemporary cameras gestures toward the human desire to still time, to freeze or classify fleeting moments.
One of the most radiant and enigmatic works in the show, An Egyptian Mug with Jan Sanders van Hemessen amalgamation (2025), reveals Matthams’s evolving interest in cultural syncretism. The work neither depicts a natural form nor a piece of photographic equipment; instead, it draws attention to hybrid objects and the porousness of historical categories. Here, ornamental and painterly languages overlap, forming a dense, reddish, and charged atmosphere, imbued with friction and even violence. The standout piece of the show, in my humble opinion, is arguably Tridacna Shell w/ Adrien van der Spelt’s Trompe-l’Oeil Still Life with a Flower Garland and a Curtain (2025). Not only is it the largest work on view, but it also triggers a nerve in visual culture by engaging with what is rooted in our collective, art historical memory—in the most urgent and poignant manner. The composition openly quotes a seventeenth-century Dutch painting, but it is once again so densely framed and filled with internal contradictions and fragmentary references that resolution seems out of reach. This cannot be seen as a coincidence: throughout the exhibition, Matthams explores how visual meaning accrues—and dissolves—across time. From the camera to the crystals. From mug to shell. As much as these works reflect on systems of knowledge and image-making, they also dismantle them. An ambiguity that is not incidental, but essential.
For more information, please consult Union Pacific’s website here.
Last Updated on November 4, 2025
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About the author:
Julien Delagrange (b. 1994, BE) is an art historian, contemporary artist, and the director of CAI and CAI Gallery. Previously, Delagrange has worked for the Centre for Fine Arts (BOZAR) in Brussels, the Jan Vercruysse Foundation, and the Ghent University Library. His artistic practice and written art criticism are strongly intertwined, examining contemporary art in search of new perspectives in the art world.
