Matt Holt Interview

 

BFA Thesis Interview with Matt Holt

September 8, 2011

What would you say are some of your influences as an artist?

Well, I am also an art historian, I love looking at old art from all kinds of cultures and I try to implement them in a very contemporary style, whether thematically or visually.

Would you consider your work to be ‘modern’ art, or do you try to create work that could be classified under an older art period like impressionism for instance?

Actually, I think there is a lot we can learn from art history and I think there is a big misconception within modernism.  I think modernism led to post modernism and the whole idea of this is then and this is now separation is flawed.  I view it as a continuation, I don’t think that there is a cut off point where you have to say that is classical art and this is post modern, we are doing something very different but at the same time is related to what is influencing us.

So you mean you think things shouldn’t be separated into a set date period when looking back in the history of art?

Yeah, I feel like people project that to much and people try to make cut offs and say this is a separate thing than that, I think that it is very naïve, it’s a futurist thing to do to say, lets not worry about the past lets only focus on the future and what were going to do and take no relation to the past. I think doing that is not only neglecting your own history and the history of your field but also there’s something similar connecting the two.

Even though you state that there shouldn’t be a set date period for art, is there one region’s art, or art movement that you look to for inspiration more than others?

I definitely take a lot of inspiration from classical art like Greek, Indian, Asian, Buddhist art but not really an Egyptian art.  I haven’t studied any African or South American art yet so that hasn’t influenced my works to date.

Are there assets in your work that you incorporate to help drive your meaning?

I love to find these cultural nuances and the way they portray it in their art and their culture and maybe bring that forward.  That’s like my background I guess, I love philosophy and incorporating various philosophical ideas into my art.

Are there ideas or concepts that you avoid within your art that might deter your meaning?

I try to avoid ethics and moralities because people tend to have very different views about things like that.  I try to bring in things like Metaphysics like what are things made of, and what is out there and how do we know what reality is?  I love big philosophical questions like that.  I try to portray that in my art form time to time too.

What is something that you never do while producing art if there is anything?

I never like making art out of the blue, I don’t sit down and start drawing and say oh that looks cool that is my art.  I like to have deep philosophical idea behind what I’m making and why I’m making my art. Not for an audience necessarily but for me.  Perhaps it’s for my own reflection, making art as a symbol.

What do you mean by a symbol? Do you want people to view your art as standing for a specific idea?

Look at Christian art where you have your symbols like the halo that stands for holiness and certain postures and positions that people are in and that stands for their greater fate ideas.  Not tied to religion, but I like to make art to reflect upon these philosophical ideas. For instance, when you look at a work of mine you can figure out what concept it is based on.

Is everything that you make clear and straight forward of what that idea is and what it is that you are trying to portray? Or is it a really deep meaning that’s meant specifically for you as a study?

In a perfect world I would make art that is completely accessible with me still having fun making the art and explaining it but I found it’s pretty impossible. One time I made a work about Plato’s ideas of universals and particulars, he said that, “the idea of a chair predates a chair, you need to have the idea of a chair before you have a physical chair,” or as others would say, no there are only particular chairs and the idea of a chair comes from all of these particular chairs.  I tried to make a project about that, like the difference of how should we view this, but know one understood it.  So I try to not get to caught up in that.

Is there a study for yourself that you conduct that helps you portray something accurately like a chair for instance, or do you typically just go right into work with out premeditating any details?

I usually try to portray what I preach about when I’m relating idea to an initial image.

Is there a painting that your making that is solving, and helping you figure out what it is, or is that you just showing what you think it is?

I think that its probably just me transcribing what I’m thinking but then again I feel like while I’m doing it a visual aid helps either helps me clarify what point I’m trying to make or changes the idea.  I think its hard for humans to work without a visual aid, because we tend to piece things together in our heads.

A Girl's Future

When looking at your work titled, A Girl’s Future, it seems like there is almost a narrative being played out between this girl, and the classical statue, what is the point, or idea that you were trying to convey here?

It’s a critique on the old fashioned mindset of what a girl has to grow up to be like, a wife, have children, etc.  I tried to juxtapose it with the modern idea of fashion, esthetics etc.  This is kind of a joke about this girl seeing this classical statue, and she’s viewing Aphrodite in a bathhouse while she’s bathing, and this girl is shocked of the scene, and she’s shocked because she wonders if this is what she’s going to become.  She will someday have to make the decision of what she will become.

What is the background imagery supposed to represent?

Well you have a picture of a baby, clothing, a dress, the pocketbook, the very typical stuff women go through as they mature, and she’s just horrified.  I think that represents the modern day women, she isn’t against that but definitely going to try and brake out of that mold, so its just a critique on that.

Crossing the River Styx

When looking at your work, “Crossing the river Styx” It stands out to me the most because I cant seem to find any philosophical ideas that you are trying to relate to classical works, so are there any in this piece?

Actually, this painting is an example of me not having an idea before I started the painting.  It is one of the rare times I did not apply a deep philosophical thought to the work until after I had already started the work.   When making this I was reacting to each previous mark I made and a narrative attributed to it later. 

Ok, well can you explain the narrative, and is this supposed to resemble something specific?

Yes, this kind of resembles the underworld in Greek mythology when you die you cross over sticks into the underworld.  You can’t really make the value between the cave wall and the water because everything blends together.  The philosophical idea of motive, everything is made of one thing, everything is a derivative of the one.  Fashioning one thing floating into another shows the idea that everything is connected in terms of that concept.

El Greco

Earlier you talked about bring the past into the present within your work, do you have an example of that or is this concept something that you think about when working but don’t actually portray it?

Yes, this piece I based on an El Greco painting, I wanted to modernize an older idea of an older painting, originally it was the rapture, you have this holly light coming from this orb, and people are being lifted up.  The people depicted are these strange farmers and strange people in the middle of a crop circle, near this great UFO beaming down from the sky.  This was more of a study, but also a goofy joke, but it definitely has to do with bring the past into the present. 

Is this whole concept of working something that Mason gross has taught you to come to conceptually?

Yea I used brushes, a palate knife, and just splattered paint onto the canvas to explore the different ways of applying the paint to the canvas.  Not thinking about composition, structure, placement and color.  It’s kind of a mess, and this might have been a response to how people look at abstract art and how I think it’s ridiculous.  I’ve noticed that people don’t dig deeper past the fact that something looks cool in abstract art.  I don’t think abstraction gets an excuse for understanding its content and criticizing it just because not everyone can dig deep enough to understand it.