Matt Kellison

About

I am an interdisciplinary artist from outside Sacramento, California. My work is a fluid exploration of the internal and external. Ingest, digest, process, depress, make mess. I use satire, irony, dark comedy, and self-deprecation to explore American culture, California cacophonies, and societal compartments in all their guises. There is no real bounds, though, for the subject matter, but these realms I turn to often. There is an attempt a balancing the satirical/humorous with the sacred, as well as the figurative with the abstracted. Pushing and pulling, slopping together the sundries of sanity to bellow softly, stupidly, a comment, crybaby yelp, in gentle finger raised suggestion. Um… Excuse me, I am saying… Then guffaw at my own foolishness. I am deeply influenced by California artists and movements, specifically funk art, San Francisco underground comics of the 1960s and ’70s, and artists like Paul McCarthy and Mike Kelley. There is an intersection of two-dimensional and three-dimensional with drawing and painting coming to the forefront. I do not neglect the importance of performance and assemblage as part of my practice as well. Much of the work is accompanied by lengthy writings, usually prose or poetry akin to the stream of consciousness of the Beats. Improvisation is key to a degree as it helps the work evolve in real time and keeps me present while working on any given piece. Some critic once spouted, “work, work, work.” That has been my mantra for some time. I will continue to do so as before. The work is important, I am just a crappy conduit.