OPENING RECEPTION: Friday, October 5th, 6-8pm

The studio is the place where artists manipulate materials and boil down ideas. Richmond artist Matt Lively uses tar to depict these settings. The tar used on roads and rooftops is made through a process called Destructive Distillation. When coal, wood, petroleum or peat is heated in the presence of little to no oxygen, tar is the sludgy substance that remains after all of the molecular bonds have been broken down. Its molecular structure is different from the material it once was, yet it came from that very material.