Where Layers Come Alive
Kai Lin Art's group exhibition VIBRANCY brings thirteen artists together around the energy of contemporary art. Among them is Matthew Sugarman, an Atlanta-based printmaker whose layered, one-of-a-kind works show how much life a surface can hold.
Sugarman grew up in and around Santa Rosa, California, within reach of Napa Valley vineyards, the coast near Bodega Bay, the city of San Francisco, the redwoods of Armstrong Grove, and the habitats of Point Reyes National Park. At fifteen he spent a year in Uppsala, Sweden, traveling through Europe with his family. The natural world and the Renaissance imagery he met there run through his work today: the living world on one side, centuries of European art on the other.
The vibrancy of Sugarman's work comes from depth and movement rather than volume. His recent pieces use two-dimensional printmaking and mixed media to evoke the visual environment of interior mental space. Softly layered imagery drifts through a nebulous field, seeming to hover between dissolution and emergence. Forms surface and recede as you look, and the image feels alive and unsettled.
That movement serves the subjects he cares about. Through narrative and symbolism, his work builds allegories of science and nature in conflict and explores universal aspects of human nature. Renaissance and Proto-Renaissance imagery gives these concerns a long historical frame, suggesting that today's political and ecological questions are old ones. Although printmaking is an important technical element, most of his works are unique mixed media pieces. They combine printed processes with drawing and painting, so no two are alike.
Sugarman holds a BA in Liberal Studies with an emphasis in Cinematography from San Francisco State University, an MA in Drawing and Printmaking from Humboldt State University, and an MFA in Printmaking from Montana State University, Bozeman. He has worked as a Master Printer at the Sun Valley Center for the Arts and Humanities, directed printmaking at the Visual Arts Center of Alaska, and taught at the University of Northern Iowa, among other institutions. Since 1998 he has led the printmaking area at Georgia State University, where he is an Associate Professor. For a quarter century he has shaped printmaking in Atlanta as both artist and teacher.
His work has earned more than two dozen awards and over twenty solo exhibitions. Honors include a purchase award in the Los Angeles Printmaking Society's twelfth National Exhibition and second place among 2,068 entries in the Greater Midwest International. He has also been accepted into the Third, Fourth, and Fifth ROC International Biennial Print Exhibitions in Taiwan. His work is in collections worldwide, including the Smithsonian Institution, the Museo Nacional del Grabado in Buenos Aires, the Beijing Natural Culture Center, and The Kemper Group.
VIBRANCY gives Atlanta audiences a chance to see Sugarman's work in person, among twelve other artists at Kai Lin Art. His surfaces reward a closer look. Visitors should take their time, let the layers settle, and watch the images shift. Join us for the artist talk on October 24th from 4 - 6pm to hear more about the work and the ideas behind it.
