Let us identify the sinister elements of Matthew Gilbert’s art up front: isolation, suspicion, horror, and torture. Now that we have diagnosed the dark edge of his solo show “Pretend Till It Hurts” at Jane Street Art in Saugerties, let us frolic in the jolly-cum-macabre ambiance that infuses this show with its wicked humor and charming chill. To enjoy Gilbert’s artistic world is to recognize his comical theatrics laced with terror, thereby reducing the malevolent and embracing the lunacy (indeed a reliable strategy for navigating the despair of existence).
The amusement of “Pretend” is that there are two distinct shows within this exhibition: the first is Gilbert’s series of film-still style embroidery works and thick yarn tapestries that hang on the walls, and the second is his set-like sculptural maquettes placed throughout the gallery. The fabric works are pure skill, and the three-dimensional installations are their own playgrounds of mayhem. While each object is its own scene within the grisly Gilbert narrative, altogether these artworks reflect his mischievous explorations of fear and folly.
Starting with the flat pieces on the walls, Gilbert takes us through morbid moments that function as stages without actors, where eerie scenery devoid of humans suggests that humans are still implicated. Orange County Gothic (2023-24), for example, features an impaled red truck that hangs from a castle steeple while a plume of white smoke from the tailpipe indicates the vehicle is still running. The white-tipped purple mountains in this tableau rise against a groovy pink sky and two highway strips go in and out at different points of this absurdly wonderful sight—all expertly conceived in bright yarn.
Gilbert used to be a filmmaker, and his keen sense of how to create a compelling spectacle is well illustrated in Back of My Heels (2026). With this work, our vantage point is inside a car at the steering wheel as we peer onto a field of ghostly white corn stalks, several of which reach into the vehicle through the open window to our left. An abandoned castle against a dark mountain range in the distance calls our attention while the deep purple sky is illuminated by cracks of lightning that pierce across the landscape and in the rearview mirror. Taking a moment to enter the frightful aura of this piece (the embroidery is exceptional to behold up close), I felt a sense of elated anxiety in the same way that a horror movie invokes nausea.
Borrowed Grief (c. 2025) is another mysterious scene with a silhouette of a figure against a black, wrought-iron fence (a recurring leitmotif for the artist) with a haunting church, two stark white trees, and a forsaken car in the distance (another wave of jitters mixed with queasiness as we anticipate something dreadful at yonder). Ache of the Wind on the Window (c. 2025) is a masterpiece and a classic Addams Family-esque gothic vision of a bedroom that includes Gilbert’s special attention to shadows shaped by light passing through a church-style window. He recreates this symbolism in some of his sculptural works including november (2023), where this same combination of window and shadow is produced by way of grey foam board and yellow yarn.
Among the most giddy works is Gilbert’s Public Toilet #2 (c. 2023). Here we come upon a miniature toilet bowl made of construction paper and surrounded by a chained fence with elongated shadows reaching outward. In my childhood years I spent many an hour arranging the mini domestic objects in my dollhouse, and Gilbert’s pint-sized toilet is reminiscent of those happy pastimes, despite the ominous undertones.
If I had to choose one artwork to encapsulate the gist of “Pretend Till It Hurts,” it would be Real Love (c. 2023). Made of foam board, this free-standing torture-device sculpture is covered in sharp spikes that would certainly injure in the ‘real world,’ but Gilbert’s ability to twist fact into farce had me giggling the whole time. As with any terrific work of theater, we recognize comedy and tragedy as indispensable to the juicy plot. Gilbert’s spooky theater of fanciful fun and fright is a howl, if you dare.
Matthew Gilbert’s “Pretend Till It Hurts” is on view at Jane Street Art in Saugerties through August 1.
