Artist Statement

Artist Matt Locke combines woodwork, architecture, natural materials, digital photography, and lights in work that examines the tension between the substantial and the superficial. By building layers of mixed media by hand, Matt’s pieces become an exploration of materiality and a search for patterns and meaning in both the observable universe and what may lie beyond.

Bio

Matt Locke (b. 1969, Colorado) received his BA from Princeton (1993) and has leveraged careers in both design and fine art. Matt was an exchange student in France (1986), studied art for one semester at SCAD (1988), and industrial design for another at the Institute of Design at IIT in Chicago (1993). Matt designed and built his own house in Colorado at age 27, introduced a line of functional sculpture objects as one of eight Emerging Artists at the Cherry Creek Arts Festival in Denver (2004), then relocated to Los Angeles to pursue art and design full-time. Matt appeared on Jeopardy! (2007) and was a finalist on HGTV Design Star (2008). Between 2009 to 2019, Matt created custom commissions for private and corporate clients, including large scale site-specific architectural installations. Since 2020, Matt has created and exhibited three new collections of fine art:

The End Is Here –mixed media wall sculptures of nostalgia for lost eras

Eyes of the Beholder – geometric collages about humans’ relationships to their machines

Chaos Theory – intricate collages examining how limited information upsets complex systems

Education

Princeton University, Princeton, NJ BA in American history 1993

Institute Of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL Study in industrial design

Savannah College Of Art & Design, Savannah, GA Study in fine art

Exhibitions

2024 Art Walk, City Club, Los Angeles, California

2023 Private Museum Exhibition, Knoll House, Pasadena, California

2015 Dwell on Design, Los Angeles, California

2009 Dwell on Design, Los Angeles, California

2004 Cherry Creek Arts Festival, Denver, Colorado

1995 Art Has Function, Max Art, Colorado Springs, Colorado

1985 Biennial, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Colorado Springs, Colorado

Press

Room Fu: Grit, Glamour & the Glitterati

ShoutOut LA: