Artist Statement

Artist Matt Locke combines woodwork, architecture, electronics, and collage in pieces that explore the tension between the substantial and the superficial. By building layers of mixed media, Matt’s three-dimensional wall sculptures superimpose American pop culture tropes onto maps and textured terrain to examine how media saturation and marketing distract from the true workings of the political, financial, and corporate systems that control actual power. Matt also mines his collection of photographs taken worldwide to produce geometric collages that look at humans’ relationships to their machines (Eyes of the Beholder) and how limited or misinterpreted information at the beginning leads to significant perturbation in chaotic systems (Chaos Theory).

Bio

Matt Locke (b. 1969, Colorado) received his BA from Princeton (1993) and has leveraged careers in both design and sculpture. Matt was an exchange student in France (1986), studied art for one semester at SCAD (1988), and industrial design for another at the Institute of Design at IIT in Chicago (1993). Matt designed and built his own house in Colorado at age 27, introduced a line of functional sculpture objects as one of eight Emerging Artists at the Cherry Creek Arts Festival in Denver (2004), then relocated to Los Angeles to pursue art and design full-time. Matt appeared on Jeopardy! (2007) and was a finalist on HGTV Design Star (2008). Between 2009 to 2019, Matt created custom commissions for private and corporate clients, including large scale site-specific architectural installations. Matt recently completed a ten-piece collection of mixed media wall sculptures about nostalgia for lost eras (The End Is Here), geometric collages that look at humans’ relationships to their machines (Eyes of the Beholder), and intricate collages examining how limited information upsets complex systems (Chaos Theory). From his studio in Los Angeles, Matt is currently working on a three-piece collection that includes a half-scale replica of a New York City subway car.

EDUCATION

1988 Savannah College Of Art & Design, Savannah, GA

1993 Princeton University, Princeton, NJ - BA in American History

1993 Institute Of Design, Illinois Institute Of Technology, Chicago, IL

EXHIBITIONS

1985 Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Biennial

1995 Max Art, “Art Has Function”, Colorado Springs

2004 Cherry Creek Arts Festival, Denver

2009 Dwell On Design, Los Angeles

2015 Dwell On Design, Los Angeles