RSVP for Matt Johnson's Alter Egos & Magical Creatures workshop
"My work is dominated by a dual preoccupation with ritual initiation and metamorphosis. As the only child of an army officer, a civilian student at a military college, and a uniformed participant in queer kink spaces, I have repeatedly experienced both a longing to be transformed and an ambivalence about the exigencies which transformation – and with it belonging – demands.
For several years, I have fashioned and inhabited an open-ended bestiary of wearable assemblages which I collectively refer to as “cyborgs,” mergers between human and other which transfigure both, enabling adaptation and survival in defiance of long odds. Beyond my longtime infatuation with the trappings of terrestrial warriors, these works also draw on images and stories from science fiction, body horror, mythology and scripture.
These solitary atavists serve as homages to lost, discarded or unattained manhoods. Their disarticulation and resynthesis of scavenged materials (including media less often utilized in the textile arts) undercuts enervated tropes of seamless technological and evolutionary progress, just as their gaudy bulk and unpolished ostentation subvert canonical masculinities."
Matt Johnson is a self-taught textile artist who began a practice in midlife. His installation Blood Music is currently on view at Materials for the Arts in Long Island City, New York. Recent group exhibitions include Parables of the Unknown at the Jamaica Center for Art and Learning, Jamaica, New York, and the 2024 juried show at Prince Street Gallery, New York, New York. Matt’s work and writing is featured in the Winter 2024 issue of Surface Design Journal. In 2025, he will join the summer cohort of the Apprentice Training Program at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Matt lives and works in Rockaway Beach, New York.
We welcome Matt to the studio as our January WIP resident!
You can visit his studio Sundays from 2pm to 5pm.
Textile Arts Center’s Work in Progress (TAC WIP) is a window into the studio practice of contemporary artists and designers that engages the public in a dialogue with the field of textiles.
For one month, WIP residents develop and showcase their work and practice in TAC’s Brooklyn studio, located in Gowanus, a neighborhood with a thriving arts community. Residents receive a personal studio space and 24hr access to the Brooklyn studio, on top of a 30% adult classes discount, while being part of a community space inspired by a love and dedication for textiles. As part of the program, WIP residents host events, lectures, and workshops that relate to their practice for the community.
