JAVA July:Aug 2018

Phoenix Art Museum’s Contemporary Forum
awarded Matt Magee the prestigious
Arlene and Morton Scult Artist Award
last year. The artist has spent the last
year creating a new body of work to exhibit in the
Marshall and Handler gallery space on the lower
level of the Phoenix Art Museum.
Magee takes a minimalist approach to his
multidisciplinary work as a visual artist. His
expansive practice includes painting, printmaking,
photography and 3D sculptures made from found
materials. This exhibition, showing through
November 4, offers a variety of oil paintings,
sculptures and found objects. The work utilizes bold
color and formalism, with nods to Op Art and hardedge
painting.
Magee has been collecting found objects for decades
that speak to his curiosity, and he reimagines them to
help form his visual language. Some of the materials
were found over 20 years ago, such as colorful
detergent bottles that Magee has cut into various
shapes and strung into sculptural forms. As you
walk down the staircase into the gallery, the largest
sculpture, titled “Purple Rain,” cascades down the
wall. The pop of color from the various hues of purple
and the simplicity in form resemble a familiar midcentury
aesthetic.
Several smaller sculptures utilize colorful repurposed
plastic throughout the space, offering a vibrancy of
color. Also included are several paintings that seem
to use a Morse code–like symbolic language. This
author’s favorite pieces are inspired by Op Art and
were rendered in multiple layers of oil paint. Each
piece subtly reveals the artist’s hand, up close, and
allows the eyes to create movement with the line
patterns from a distance.
Magee’s work as a whole comes together to explore
his visual language, and yet each piece tells its
own story. Reverence is shown to other artists
who worked and exhibited in New York City during
the ’60s, such as Agnes Martin, Bridget Riley and
Sol LeWitt. Magee has always gravitated toward
creative people and explored his own creativity.
He studied at Trinity University in San Antonio,
focusing on art history. Magee earned his MFA
from Pratt Institute in NYC, where he focused
on nontraditional media and processes. During
his undergraduate studies, he interned for two
summers at Guggenheim Museum in New York; his
last summer in school was spent interning for the
Guggenheim in Venice, Italy.
Magee went on to work as an art handler and as
the chief photo archivist for the seminal artist
Robert Rauschenberg for over 18 years. This
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