MATT FOREHAND: They are known through conversation
View Evan Snow of Choose954 interview with Matt Forehand
Click Here to view Opening Reception Images
The work of Matt Forehand is focused on ideas of heritage and how the environment is integral in our cultural identities. Forehand exhibits work that has been collaged from his family’s home in Colombia and his current home in South Florida to play within the makeup of his personal identity and uncover the nuances and ways in which he relates to these places. Using both found and taken images as the starting points, each image becomes a component in a larger collage to uncover and reimagine memories. These collages are used as a basis for his paintings as he often depicts contemporary figures engulfed by verdant landscapes that are quilted together from various sources. Forehand creates works and revisits them over time, often repeating them in new renditions, referencing the way in which we revisit memories, each time remembering more and more.
This exhibition in Gallery 2 at the Center is the fifth of our Oolite Collaborations series with Oolite Arts based in Miami Beach.
The exhibition brochure includes a text written by Kevin Demery, an interdisciplinary artist from the San Francisco Bay Area.
Matt Forehand is originally from Pensacola, Florida, where he studied art at Pensacola State College. He graduated from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) with a degree in painting, drawing, and printmaking. During his time at SAIC, he was enrolled in Ox-Bow School of the Arts, an artist residency in Saugatuck, Michigan. Forehand is currently the printmaking resident at Oolite Arts.
Kevin Demery holds a BFA from California College of the Arts and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Demery received the Municipal Art League Grant from SAIC and participated in the Artist in Residence programs at Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, CA, The Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, NE, and Acre Residency in Steuben, WI, among others. He has exhibited work both nationally and internationally at the University of Chicago’s Arts Incubator, H&R Block Space at the Kansas City Art Institute, and the Art Berlin fair in Berlin, Germany. He most recently had a solo exhibition at SakhileandMe gallery in Frankfurt, Germany in 2022. Demery is currently a Visiting Assistant professor and AICAD fellow at the Kansas City Art Institute and an Artist in Residence at the Charlotte Street Foundation in Kansas City, Missouri.
