1. References

Matthew Clay Baumgardner (February 5, 1955 - November 20, 2018) was an American contemporary artist and National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artist Fellowship winner whose work was featured in multiple public and private collections including the Gibbes Museum of Art and the Greenville Museum of Art in Greenville, SC.^[1][2] After graduating with an MFA from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1982, he was a fixture for over three decades in New York City's art scene.

Since leaving New York for Travelers Rest, SC in 2006 he has been featured in numerous magazines, newspapers and online articles some of which focus on his art^[3][4] and others on his home and studio.^[5]

Born in Columbus, Ohio, on February 5, 1955, Matt graduated from Upper Arlington High School in 1973. Some of Matt’s fondest childhood memories were exploring nature while living in wooded Bernardsville, NJ.  His love of nature and its four elements- fire, air, earth and water- permeated his life and art.  Inspecting insects with his microscope, tending his grounds laden with flowers and edible plants, swimming in the Caribbean with his daughters or laps in the pool at his studio, lighting fireworks or a burn pile of pruned branches, and contemplating beautiful sunsets in the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains were his simple joys that inspired his work. Deeply spiritual, Matt articulated, embraced and expressed through his art the transcendent issue

Matt earned his MFA from University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in 1982, under Peter Plagens.  Previously, he studied under eminent South Carolina artists Carl Blair, Emery Bopp and Darell Koons at Bob Jones University, graduating in 197-, and then taught art to grade schoolers at Bob Jones Academy until 198-.  During this time in the Carolinas, Matt received purchase awards from the Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC (“Biennial Exhibition of Piedmont Painting and Sculpture”), and the Spartanburg Art Museum, and had a painting chosen by renowned New York Times art critic, Roberta Smith, for the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston for its “30^th Annual GSCA Exhibition”.  His work was exhibited in curated shows, including at the Reston Fine Arts Center in Virginia; Auckland Art Museum in North Carolina; Huntington Museum of Art in West Virginia; Greater Birmingham Fine Arts Exhibition in Alabama; Greenville County Museum of Art (“Fifth Annual Curator’s Choice Exhibition”) and Clemson University Lee Hall Gallery in South Carolina (“Five South Carolina Artists”) and (“SC Arts Commission Annual Exhibition”)''.

Matt lived in New York City from 1982 through 2004, where the majority of his body of artwork was created, at studios in Red Hook, on Columbia Street and East Second Street, as well as in Trenton, NJ.  His archives from this period include paintings and works on paper in all scales from the abstract expressionist pieces bursting with the electric energy of the 1980’s NYC art scene, to his reductive work reflecting appreciation of the grid beginning in the late 1990’s.  During this phase of his career, his work was exhibited in 15 solo and over 30 group shows, including galleries in NYC, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Scottsdale, Omaha, and Zurich, Switzerland.  

In 1993, Matt was awarded the highest honor for an individual artist bestowed by the National Endowment for the Arts, a Visual Arts Fellowship in Painting, for his birch plywood series, representing the beginning of his signature technique of embedded glyphs in multiple layers of pigmented gypsum.  This series also earned him a solo show in 1993 at the prestigious Charles Cowles Gallery in NYC, concurrent with a solo show for Dale Chihuly.

Matt raised his four daughters in Manhattan with his former wife Heather Evans, sharing his studio with his daughters creating artwork to their favorite music as he painted were his most treasured memories.  

In 2006, Matt relocated to a rural setting between Greenville, SC and Asheville, NC.  In 2009, he designed and contracted to build a live/work studio on an acre of land, and began to paint again in December after a 5 year hiatus. He was honored that the Greenville County Museum of Art offered him a major exhibition from November 2011 to January 2012.  The Museum showcased 63 of Matt’s artworks spanning 27 years, published a color plate catalogue and acquired a painting for its permanent collection.  Since his move to South Carolina, Matt met many devoted collectors whom he considered friends, and collaborated with Eric Brown Design for placement of his work.   In late 2015, Matt exhibited at Art San Diego, winning the Director’s Choice Award for a 72 x 72 inch triptych, and at Spectrum Miami.  He has been represented by Forre & Co. Fine Art in Aspen, Colorado since 2016.  Matt’s studio continues as a venue for showing his work to collectors, gallerists, designers and museum staff.  His work may also be experienced at nearby Hotel Domestique, with which he has collaborated since 2014, and at Forre & Co. Fine Art Gallery.  

2012 Greenville County Museum of Art “Made for Another World”, 63 works from 1985-2011, with 57 page catalog and museum purchase for permanent collection, Greenville, SC; 2002 & 1998 Bentley Gallery Scottsdale, AZ; 2002 & 2001 Jeffery Coploff Fine Art New York, NY; 1998 MD Modern Gallery Houston, TX; 1995 Carrie Secrist Gallery Chicago, IL; 1993 Charles Cowles Gallery New York, NY; 1992 Howard Yezerski Gallery Boston, MA; 1989 & 1988 Wessel O’Connor Ltd. New York, NY; 1987 Wilkov-Goldfeder New York, NY; 1981 Sumter Gallery Sumter, SC; 1980 Presbyterian College Clinton, SC

2018, 2017 & 2016 Forre & Co. Fine Art Aspen,CO (and 2017, 2016 Vail, CO); 2015 Spectrum Miami Miami, FL; 2015 Art San Diego San Diego, CA; 2009 The National Arts Club New York, NY; 2000 Jeffrey Coploff Fine Art New York, NY; 1999 Robert Kidd Gallery Birmingham, MI; 1999 Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts Omaha, NE; 1999 LewAllen Contemporary Santa Fe, NM; 1997 Bentley Gallery Scottsdale, AZ; 1995 Galerie Marie-Louise Wirth “American Topography” Zurich, Switzerland; 1993 New Museum of Contemporary Art New York, NY; 1993 Trans Hudson Gallery Jersey City, NJ; 1991 Stephanie Theodore Gallery New York, NY; 1989 Wessel O’Conner Ltd. New York, NY; 1988 Trenton City Museum Trenton, NJ; 1987 Wilkov-Goldfeder “Exhibit A” New York, NY; 1987 Wilkov-Goldfeder Summer Exhibition New York, NY; 1986 Mokotoff Gallery “Raw Energy Show” New York, NY; 1986 Mokotoff Gallery “Heads” New York, NY; 1985 Edward Thorp Gallery “Abstract Painting” New York, NY; 1985 Hudson Center Gallery “New Abstraction” New York, NY; 1985 Mokotoff Gallery “The Gesture Painters” New York, NY; 1983 Greater Reston Arts Center Reston, VA; 1982 Ackland Art Museum Chapel Hill, NC; 1982 Huntington Museum of Art “Exhibition 280” Huntington, WV; 1981 Gibbes Museum of Art “30th Annual GSCA Exhibition” Charleston, SC; 1981 Mint Museum “Biennial Exhibition of Piedmont Painting and Sculpture” Charlotte, NC; 1981 Greater Birmingham Fine Arts Exhibition Birmingham, AL; 1980 Clemson University Lee Hall Gallery “Five South Carolina Artists” Clemson, SC; 1980 Greenville County Museum of Art “Fifth Annual Curator’s Choice Exhibition” Greenville, SC; 1980 Clemson University Lee Hall Gallery “SC Arts Commission Annual Exhibition” Clemson, SC.

My work imparts a transformative experience that resonates with my longings to channel universal and spiritual planes; I want to transport the spirit, to remind us all that we are perfect beings passing through a transient world. My soul craves expression through poetic and timeless art that beckons the viewer to return time and again to find renewal and fresh experiences. What distinguishes my work is the synthesis of two disparate approaches - free-form mark-making and a formalized grid based on spatial frequency. Developed and refined over 26 years, my unique fusion of process and materials plays a vital role in delivering this vision.

My inspiration has evolved from a wellspring of sources, from petroglyphs to the concept of cubism. Since the late 70’s I have devoured the brilliant and awe-inspiring masterpieces of Mondrian. I resonate with Paul Klee’s belief that many other realities are open and that his work was a way to access those realms. I am also moved by Klee’s respect for nature and childlike spirit, expressed through colorful pictoral symbols and experimentation with materials. I am transported by Miro’s constellation pieces with their dance of amazing color and perfectly located glyphs celebrating humanity and the heavens. An integral element in my work is free-form drawing. The freedom in my drawing relates to Pollock’s drip paintings and Marden’s paper pieces—both used sticks to disconnect from the surface, allowing for serendipity. My drawing also evokes the esoteric asemic scribbles of Cy Twombly and his gifted palette. The other primary thrust of my work, the innate use of geometry with a reductive aspect, was influenced by studying several artists, including Mondrian. I have enjoyed and gleaned from the solid Matt Baumgardner colored architecture of Marden’s panel paintings. I have the utmost respect for Robert Ryman’s entire body of work. Alfred Jensen had a significant impact on my gravitation towards the formal grid. Carl Andre’s purity of simplicity and materials appeal to my sensibilities. I am impressed by Donald Judd’s architectural basis built on intuitive mathematics, the perfection of his spatial frequency and the bravery of his reduction. The zen-like peace and ethereal subtlety of Agnes Martin’s work inspires me. Like James Turrell and Robert Irwin, I am fascinated by the interplay of space with light.

My paintings are created from multiple layers of “Mud”— gypsum pigmented with Golden Acrylics or powder pigments. Into each thick wet layer I draw with graphite pencils on the canvas horizontally propped on paint cans on the floor. The physicality of the mud interrupts my drawing, akin to the ancients cutting into earth or stone to make their marks with sticks and other tools. Prior to drawing, I allow my mind to let go and be transported to a meditative state, flooded with simultaneous thoughts ranging from the sacred to the profane. The primitive simplicity and childlike freedom of the resulting glyphs yield pure, honest, unadulterated discovery and expression. Raw and visceral, the marks convey mysterious asemic meanings unique to each observer. Many of these etched strata are then heated to create cracks alluding to natural decay, or sanded to excavate hidden and unexpected treasures of glyphs buried in the alchemy of the pigmented Mud. These multiple layers of drawings, whether ultimately visible forms or invisible buried ghost marks, affect the resolved piece and represent the teeming stream of fractal human thoughts unfolding each nanosecond. In contrast to this subconscious free-form drawing is the formalized spatial frequency of the grid, i.e. the intuitive use of geometrical forms.

Since the late 70’s, I have often structured works with an underlying architectural armature to anchor the infinitely available directions that then unfold as I approach each painting. Then in 1999, after studying this aspect of Piet Mondrian and Alfred Jensen and meeting Donald Judd, I appreciated the virtues of the formal grid and enjoyed the challenge of using it. I later realized that there were other influences contributing to this refinement of my vision, such as the need to release the overwhelming power within the grids of streets and skyscrapers that surrounded me for 22 years in NYC. The grid is based on intuitive mathematics; it is dictated in each piece by finding the perfect relationship among the scale and number of elements to the field and to each other. The grid tends to be either superimposed on the surface of the painting or inlaid, a pattern of squares, lines or triangles. Once the grid is intuited, its execution requires a workmanlike process with excruciating attention to the detailed geometry. The pattern is first mapped out, followed by the meticulous application of multiple layers of paint and finished with pearl iridescence. I really don’t fully see what has been created until the piece is saturated with Lascaux matte varnish, which intensifies and further activates the excavated colors from the various strata. Light is absorbed through the rugged and uneven layers of Mud, like a bas relief, casting shadows and highlights. Contrasted with this earthiness is the pearlescent grid, shimmering with kinetic energy. Reflective pearlescent elements become figures or windows or portholes ushering the observer into the depths of the painting’s mystical asemic messages imbedded in the Mud. The experience is both an intimate, internalized view of the cosmos while at the same time an expansive one.

References

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