Bio
Matt creates two dimensional and installation based artwork that explore rigid philosophical systems and how those structures react or do not react to genuine skeptical inquiry. Matt has completed a B.S. in Graphic Design from Mississippi College (2005) and a Masters in Fine Art from Florida State University (2009). He was born in Mississippi and lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Artist Statement
My work is a reflection of my journey to find spiritual awakening, identity, and intellectual growth in order to create new institutions of the mind. I intend to reach this goal of realignment through knowledge, reason, and science. In states of higher awareness achieved by meditation or expansive thinking, the energies of the body are felt to be elusive, electrifying, and almost sublime. This realm of consciousness has been confined to rigid institutions and traditions that lack relevance to me as I search for updated and universal modes of representation.
Using a combination of drawing, painting, and new media applications, I attempt to render this realm of consciousness into form. In a transparent landscape, perhaps in the landscape of one’s self, my work depicts uncertainty through images of humans in a state of becoming or becoming undone. The lines may coalesce or fray, confine or release. Like a nest of neurons, the lines provide paths for activity; leading one's eyes through the artwork and forcing themselves into one's body. The lines visually and conceptually pulse to simulate a transformation of consciousness that is occurring in the figures represented.
These anthropomorphic ideals materialize into a landscape in which transparent figures are interacting in a combined, encompassing manifold. They pull, uproot, and hide the fragmented and systemic features to reveal intricate and repetitive systems that surround and penetrate the bodies. To transcend rigid traditions, I intend for my work to signify psychological change. I use willed introspection and mythological propositions to guide me, as schema, through this journey.