Matt Connors explores key concerns of contemporary abstraction in painting. Connor’s practice is defined by, and continually evolves through, his engagement with sources ranging from poetry to book design and architecture, album covers and twentieth-century art. Often working from photographs or from observation in his studio, Connors draws upon details such as patterns, silhouettes, or shapes, which he transfers onto paper or canvas. Working in a range of media–including acrylic, crayon, watercolor, oil paint, and silkscreen–Connors abstracts his source imagery through fragmentation, layering, and shifts in color and scale. Nonlinear and open-ended, Connor’s practice systematically archives an ongoing relationship between the artist and the world around him that is deeply personal and ever-changing.
Matt Connors (b. 1973, Chicago, Illinois) lives and works in New York City. He received a BFA from Bennington College, Vermont (1995) and an M.F.A. from Yale University, New Haven (2006). He recently curated Finding Aid (2024), an exhibition at Goldsmiths CCA featuring his work alongside admired artists and was included in the Whitney Biennial 2022, Quiet as It's Kept. Recent solo exhibitions include Positions, Ortuzar, New York (2024); Tune, Herald St, London (2023); Finder, The Modern Institute, Glasgow (2023); Body Forth, Canada, New York (2022); Figure, The Modern Institute, Glasgow (2019); Impressionism, MoMA PS1, New York (2012); and Gas...Telephone...One Hundred Thousand Rubles, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Germany (2011). Institutional collections include the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Walker Arts Center, Minneapolis; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Dallas Museum of Art, Texas; Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo; San Antonio Museum of Art, Texas; and National Gallery of Art, Canberra, Australia. Connors received a 2012 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, was a 2015 Artist in Residence at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas, and most recently, was awarded the Award of Merit Medal in Painting at the 2024 American Academy of Arts and Letters Awards.
