Clay Mahn received his BFA in painting from the University of Montana’s College of Visual and Performing Arts in 2012. He has since been living and working throughout the Pacific Northwest, from Seattle to Portland, Oregon, and currently resides in Chicago.
Mahn’s paintings utilize pattern and repetition to emphasize visual effects and compositional simplicity. By fracturing basic shapes and structures these works achieve a peculiarity that renders them familiar yet unexpected. Nodding to optical-art practices, these simple disturbances offer impressions of space and movement, shifting the two- dimensional plane into a dynamic state. He is particularly interested in the fact that through the ordered repetition of a simple gesture, immense systems can be built.
Exhibition Opening: 13th October, 6:00pm