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Artist Spotlight: Matt Neff

October 13, 2016

“My work is concerned with historic and current negotiations of power and privilege regarding race, gender, and class – ideas I refract through multiple lenses, including the systemic, the interpersonal, and the self. These layered thought processes are reflected in my varied approach to making, both in concept and in form, and result in work marked by fragile impermanence. Formally, I am interested in the absence of image, anti-icons, and the repeated and shifting the use of common materials, which I transform into works imbued with mystery. I use sugar, graphite, air, and ash as pigment and subject matter, as well as discarded, found, and assembled objects and a variety of print and photographic processes, to create overlapping and self-enveloping images and objects that evoke visceral reactions and curiosity.” – Matt Neff Matt Neff is an artist, printer, and educator living in Philadelphia. Neff teaches and runs the Common Press at the University of Pennsylvania. He holds an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania, and a BFA in studio art and a BA in Art History from Indiana University. Neff had a close teacher-student and work relationship with Adkins. He has said about his time with Adkins, “My experiences studying with and working for Terry Adkins over many years had an immeasurable impact on my way of working. His way of reconsidering and combining objects with different histories to rewrite underrepresented histories.  Of celebrating the overlooked and discarded and continually re-evaluating his own approach. His process was poetic, patient, and rigorous, and I feel fortunate to have been a part of it.”