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MATT’S PROCESS

I orchestrate energies. I like abstract paintings made with very discrete marks for maximum graphic dissonance between moves.

 

My paintings are made with a plug-and-play attitude so I can just paint, unworried about making mistakes, without having to stumble my way through every painting. Thinking like a computer, I sequence my painted marks on paper, digitize them, then I animate them in the machine.

 

When I integrated folds into my process after a scanning accident, my style became apparent. What began as a simple way to make nonrepresentational paintings and animations quickly has evolved into worlds of constructivist expressionism where the meaning of my work comes from its actions. 

 

The term digital is both electronic and of fingers, divergent at its origin. Hand-making is now a form of resistance in our world dictated by algorithms and AI. My work questions our cultural addiction to story by fragmenting aspects of narrative — conflict, performance, setting — into limited painterly forms. My collages are dematerialized low-resolution models waiting to be scaled up and rematerialized into paintings, animations and sculptures spotlighting polarities between content, control, and ourselves. 

 

The split-second just before or just as confrontation is initiated is a beautiful moment. Just when I think I know what my animations are doing or are about in process, there’s always a point where what I’m doing feels out of sync with the actual content/meaning. From there I listen to my little voice, adjust and simplify, often by extracting lingering narratives screwing up my process for use as titles. Then the work powers up and I’m in an obsessed trance until a particular work is “done,” whether I’m making a painting, painting-in-motion animation, live-mixed video projection onto architecture, or a video I can walk around, aka sculpture.  

ABOUT MATT

BIO: Matt Sheridan’s video-based action painting explores worlds of constructivist expressionism where his work’s meaning comes from its actions. Each of his “painting-in-motion” videos unpacks its painting analog into experiential, architectural projections sometimes edited live on-the-spot.

 

Trained as an animator, Sheridan earned his BFA from NYU/Tisch School of the Arts and his MFA from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.

 

He has taught at Pratt Institute, the School of Visual Arts, and NYU in New York and Singapore, and at UCLA’s Geffen Academy.

 

Sheridan worked on television productions for HBO, MTV, Nickelodeon and the NBA, screened work in festivals and two Olympic Games, exhibited work in museums such as Centre Pompidou and the Jeu de Paume in Paris; most recently at South Korea’s CICA Museum.

 

Sheridan has won grants – including a Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant for painting – and otherwise participated in exhibitions, residencies, fellowships and events from Finland to Japan, India to Brazil, France to Australia and USA from New York to Miami to Los Angeles.

 

Matt Sheridan’s work is in American collections in New York, Miami and Los Angeles; Australian collections in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane; and a French collection on the Cote d’Azur.

 

SOLO EXHIBITIONS / PROJECTS

 

2024

Modulated Modularities, curator: Lindsay Kessner;
College of the Redwoods’ Floyd Bettiga Gallery, Eureka, California
Les Amants Eternels (The Lingering Lovers), curator: Nelcy Mercier,
La Napoule Art Foundation, Mandelieu-la-Napoule, France

2019 Schemattitudes, curator: Tove Langridge; TW Fine Art, Brisbane, Australia
Cook Until Raw, curator: Leejin Kim; CICA Museum, Gimpo, South Korea
2018 Noodles For Tony / Curry For Chas (video projection), TWFINEARTx2 @ W Hotel Brisbane 
2017 Exchanges, curator: Tove Langridge; TW Fine Art, Brisbane, Australia
2016 Elegant Brutality (paintings and painting-in-motion video), curator: Tove Langridge; TW Fine Art, Brisbane, Australia
Rematerialize Me (video), curator: Rita de Alencar Pinto; Vanity Projects, LES/NYC
2015 Vanishing Point (Make Waves), four channel painting-in motion video installation (gallery and facade); curator: Yusuke Shimura; Gallery FAIR, Narita, Japan
Matsudo Ebb + Flow, nine painting-in-motion cinematic video, installation + VJ projects curators: Junpei Mori + Shoji Wataru / PARADISE AIR; courtesy of Japan Agency for Cultural Affairs / Bunkacho; Matsudo, Chiba, Japan
2014 Contours of Belief, large scale public urban painting-in-motion video installation, curator: Andrea May; courtesy SECULT / Bahia Secretary of Culture, Salvador da Bahia, Brazil
Fire Water, public painting-in-motion video projection, Salvador da Bahia, Brazil
2008 Institutionalized, MFA thesis show, 2 video installation, Raymond Gallery,Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA;
Disinformation Breakdown, (3 channel video w/cellphone sound), South Campus Wind Tunnel, ACCD

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

 

2024 Let’s Start With Beauty, curators: Rebecca Norton + Charley Miller;
Orbit Gallery at MaybeItsFate social club, Louisville, KY
2022 Metascapes, curator: Tove Langridge; TWFINEART, Brisbane, Australia
2020 Annual rotating exhibition, (video projection and painting), h Club Art Program, curators: Katya Somerville and Ali Hillman, Los Angeles, CA
Wavelength Video: Pandemic Projections, (video projection) – 3 presentations, curators: Jeanne Brasile and Gianluca Bianchino – Signac NJ, Newark NJ, Patchogue NY
2018 Noodles For Tony / Curry For Chas (video projection), TWFINEARTx2 @ W Hotel Brisbane, Australia
2017 The Digital Body (video), curator: Leejin Kim; CICA Museum, Gimpo, South Korea
Sunday Painter (painting + live mixed video), curator: Alex Nunez; Laundromat, Miami, FL
2016 Falcon’s Nest, Los Angeles, CA Falcon’s Nest: Part 1 (video), curator: Caitlin Slegr; Falcon’s Nest, Los Angeles, CA
S/Election (video), curator: Erin Christovale; Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, LA, CA
2015 Formless to Form (video + prints), curator: Tove Langridge; TW Fine Art, Brisbane, Australia
2014 Chasing Tail, (video and prints), curator: Tove Langridge; TW Fine Art, Brisbane, Australia
Paint, And The Use Of; two-person show, curator: Ariel Mitchell; American Qi, LES/NYC
Abracadabra, (painting) curator: Jane Hart; Art + Culture Center of Hollywood, FL
Do You See What I See? (video), La Napoule Art Foundation, Mandelieu-la-Napoule, FR
Circuitos das Artes 2014 (video), curator: Eneida Sanches; Salvador da Bahia, Brazil
2013 Unpredictable Patterns of Behavior (video + paintings), curator: Ombretta Agro Andruff; Project Space 924, Art Center South Florida, Miami Beach, FL
All-Media Juried Biennial (opening night video projection), curators: Hunter Braithwaite + Gean Moreno w/ Jane Hart; Art + Culture Center of Hollywood, FL
From Obama to Occupy: Works of Outrage 2008-12, curator: Jesse Phillips-Fein (video);  Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Brooklyn, NY
2012 Immaterial Ergonomics (video installation), curators: Chris Warr, Morgan Mandalay, Joshua Miller and Ariel Mitchell; Space4Art, San Diego, CA
Innovations (video installation + painting), curators: Bryan Thomas and Jaroslava Prihodova; Dowd Art Gallery/SUNY College at Cortland, NY
2011 Audrey Cottin: Charlie & Sabrina, Who Would Have Believed? (a collaboration with Audrey), curator: Raimundas Malašauskas; Jeu de Paume, Paris, FR
Apogee, curators: Elmar Hermann, Marcus Herse and Michael Rey (video installation); JB Jurve, Los Angeles, CA
Iconoclasts + Iconodules (video installation w/cellphone sound), curator: Ombretta Agro Andruff; Religare Art Gallery, New Delhi, India

GRANTS / FELLOWSHIPS / RESIDENCIES + AWARDS

 

2024, 2023,
2020
UCLA Unit 18 Faculty Professional Development Award
2019 Golden Foundation / Scholastic Art Educators’ Residency Finalist: Materials Grant
2018 Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant
2014 PARADISE AIR Residency, Matsudo, Chiba Japan
Funded by Japan Agency for Cultural Affairs / Bunkacho + Matsudo City Council
2013 Secretary of Culture (SECULT), Salvador da Bahia, Bahia, Brazil Audiovisual Production Grant
Santa Fe Art Institute, Santa Fe, NM Partial Residency Grant (3/4 funding)
Fountainhead Residency, eight week residency, Miami, FL
2012 Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs / Cultural Exchange International, CA
Fellowship + Travel Grant to Instituto Sacatar, Itaparica, Bahia, Brazil
Center for Cultural Innovation, Los Angeles, CA Artists’ Resource for Completion (ARC) Grant
La Napoule Art Foundation, Mandelieu-la-Napoule, France: Fellowship
2011 Arteles Artist Residency Program, eight week residency, Haukijarvi, Finland
2010 CAMAC Centre D’Art, eight week residency, Marnay-sur-Seine, France Partial Residency Grant (1/3 funding)
2008 Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA: Thesis Project Grant

EDUCATION

2006 – 08 Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA, USA
(MFA) Master of Fine Arts degree awarded 2011 upon completion of written thesis
Graduate Art subjects: video art, painting, art theory and philosophy
1990 – 92 New York University, Tisch School of the Arts, NY, NY, USA
(BFA) Bachelor of Fine Arts degree awarded May 1992
Department of Film+Television subjects: animation, live-action video + 16mm film