Matt Barton
Assistant Professor of Sculpture
Degrees:
M.F.A. Carnegie Mellon University
B.F.A. Montana State University
By straddling many disciplinary thresholds, my creative work explores the possibilities available through new digital media and audience participation by expanding notions of sculpture into immersive installations. While tailoring to a first-hand multi-sensory experience, I am concerned with engaging the viewer in multi-media environments in which the astonishment of spectacle gives way to deeper existential questions of the nature of reality by blurring boundaries between dream, fantasy, and reality, and confusing the distinctions between sacred and secular, kitsch and spiritual, while exploring the importance of humor and play. Brightly colored jovial surfaces serve as entry points to contemplate more difficult inquiries into the nature of time, idyllic notions of the afterlife, and the harmonic balance of the beautiful and the disturbing. Simple analogue mechanical components are intertwined with digital video projected and embedded on flat screens, creating a dialogue between old and new technologies and evoking sensations of the uncanny and/or sublime.
Selected Work
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Selected Exhibitions:
Carnegie Museum of Art / Natural History Museum, Pittsburgh, PA
Gallery of Contemporary Art, Colorado Springs, CO
Mattress Factory, Pittsburg, PA
The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY
Fine Arts Center Modern, Colorado Springs, CO
Shore Institute of Contemporary Art, Long Beach, NJ
Front Room Gallery, Cleveland, OH
Children's Museum of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA
Space 1026, Pittsburgh, PA
Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA
Camberwell College of Art, University of the Arts, London, England
London Institute, London, England
University of West England, Bristol, England
Teaching Philosophy:
As an educator, I create a dynamic atmosphere where students feel comfortable taking chances. Investigation and exploration are the keys to developing their own personal visual language, and I try to set an encouraging tone that is both exciting and playful. By providing stimulation and support throughout the creative process, I promote confidence and fearlessness in each student enabling him or her to feel that anything is possible. I emphasize the importance of the process, while striving for finalized work that is aesthetically and conceptually whole with a harmonious mergence of concept and form. I work with students to develop their thought process in expanding on ideas and developing deeper levels of analytical critique of personal, social, and political issues.
Courses I Teach:
VA 102 Beginning Studio 3D
VA 208 Beginning Sculpture
VA 308 Advanced Sculpture
VAPA 400 Interdisciplinary Capstone