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Matt Muirhead: Wonder and Doom

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Science Fictions

Talking Cats, Crankies and Process with Matt Muirhead by Ethan McLeod

Matt Muirhead’s recent vibrant collection of screen prints create an affect of equal parts wonder and doom by superimposing all sorts of creatures onto traditional landscapes and even Baltimore landmarks. His work can be seen hanging up in shops and galleries around the city, most prominently in his former neighborhood of Hampden. While cats and Star Wars icons certainly attract plenty of fans, Muirhead notes that viewers can draw something deeper from his apparent obsessions with those lovable subjects in context.

Just last month, Muirhead moved to a larger space in Cockeysville, where he now has quietude to enjoy nature and space to build bigger creations than ever before. I sat down with him last week to talk about his time as an artist in Baltimore and what he envisions for his art in the future.

skullflowersmuirhead

Ethan McLeod: You’ve been here now for nine years. Why’d you move to Baltimore?

Matt Muirhead: It was just happenstance. I met somebody who was from here and they were moving back, and I thought it just seemed like a decent place. She had rave reviews about how easy it was to congeal an art scene here.

Did you find that to be true?

Yeah, totally. There are plenty of chances for artists to make opportunities for themselves here. If you’re doing stuff, it’s reasonably easy to get seen, I think.

Did you feel like it took some time to really make an impression with the type of work you liked to do?

There’s tons of festivals here, or at least when I got here, there were tons of small events that people put together where it’d be like little arts shows, things like that. It’s sort of a building thing; it certainly didn’t happen overnight. But I was never like, “Boo, nobody cares about what I do,” [laughs], you know like, stonewalled by the city. When I would make something, it was always a positive experience.

Have you always worked as a screen printer, or did you move into that later on?

Actually, that’s something I started doing when I first came here. I’ve been painting since the early ‘90s – I graduated high school in ’91. I went to a very small high school in Michigan, and we would go to a vocational technical school. I took a graphic design and printing class and I learned screen printing there.

I liked art, so I did it. I’d put art in coffee shops or wherever I could get wall space. But I left screen printing until I moved to Baltimore. It was really about being outside the United States and seeing how ridiculous it was here and feeling like nobody was talking about the things that should be talked about politically.

When I started screen printing, it was separate from my art. It was all political sloganeering, patches and that kind of thing. I sold some through Red Emma’s and other places when I came here. It was fun, a good way to meet people and engage in conversations.

flowersharbormuirhead

So it was more of a social way for you to be making art?

Yeah, I saw myself as an activist, but not one that was in a collective. Just sort of getting these messages out there that I liked. I think I don’t do that as much anymore. The screen printing merged with my art and evolved with my painting.

At what point did painting and printing collide?

It was a slow process. It’s half-and-half. I often use screens to render something very visually exact, and then I sort of paint into it, so it’s merged in a very physical way. It used to be that I would paint the structure of an object. Now I screen print that structure and then paint it in there.

Is that how you arrived at your style of printing?

It’s funny, because I think screen printing and a lot of the serigraphic arts like lino cuts, screen printing, block printing, all of those forms where you’re creating a device that prints an image, they’re very anal-retentive. It’s very much like there’s one way to do it, because the goal is to create 100 or 200 of something that are all exactly the same.

For what it’s supposed to be, I’m probably considered a dirty screen printer. I use the sun to expose my screens – I do it in the kitchen for the most part. For a while, I was teaching a lot of screen printing and I would teach that technique, that it doesn’t involve expensive lights or vacuum presses or any of those things. I get great, precise results doing it with almost no equipment.

bomoselzermuirhead

How important is that organic component to you?

It’s a practical thing. I don’t have room to put a big light in or have a press or those kinds of things. A lot of my art evolves practically. It’s not like a decision that I’m making. This fits with the way my life is. I guess I’m just following the process, and the process just follows what I’m able to put into it financially, space-wise. I’m much more interested in how this thing works in my life, and it feels organic in the flow of my day.

I’m mostly self-taught with my art. I’ve learned a lot from my mistakes and from learning how to translate my process into something that works for me, and not in the right way, but in my way. That leads into all kinds of stylistic things that maybe people think add up to a style. But it’s not like the style was this thing that I headed toward.

For those who see these prints, what obviously catches the eye is the animals, the sci-fi. How did you come to that?

It’s just purely the things that I’m interested in. Certainly. I’m interested in things that sell – there is that component. But I think more than it just being, ‘Oh, cats!’ or ‘Oh, aliens!’ or whatever it is. I’m just a big sci-fi nerd, especially for epic science fiction. A lot of what I try to capture with those paintings is an epic scene. I want to blow your mind.

darkknightmuirheadMuirhead’s The Dark Knight

So in prints like these, that epic element was intended there from the beginning?

Yeah. It’s not just necessarily that I just like cats. [laughs] It’s the fantastic. And yet while there’s the whole Hollywood blockbuster sci-fi thing, there are deeper ideas. I’m really into these epic cityscapes, and especially Baltimore. I try to tie those epic narratives to the city. That’s what we’re seeing all over the place, is things are coming home, whether it’s politically or socially. All my life I’ve read about the future or decline, these big civilizational upheavals.

I feel like that’s really coming home now, and a lot of what I’m trying to get across is the closeness to it that I feel when I look at the news or read my Facebook feed. For me, it’s a positive idea, a giant cat. I like that my work is sort of epic and immediate at the same time, because I feel that those things are merging.

EM: Do you see your recent move out to a more remote rural area changing that feeling of closeness to those parts of the city shown in your prints?

MM: I guess we’ll have to see, but I think it will. I love thinking about my present surroundings, thinking about the historical aspect of what was here, and also what will be here. That has to have an effect. I lived in Hampden most of the time that I was in Baltimore. I had to get some space to build bigger projects. It’s funny though, because I’ve had some big projects to do since I got here, so I haven’t really had a chance to make work that reflects my new surroundings.

But I’ve got plenty of ideas. There are so many insects and salamanders and snakes and stuff like that around here. I spent a lot of my time, especially my later high school years, in rural Michigan, and it had really similar surroundings, and it really takes me back there quite a bit.

pattersonparkpagodamuirhead

EM: How have your printing and painting intersected with your other craft – building instruments?

MM: I’ve been making instruments for probably six or seven years. Where it’s going is things like this thing [pulls out and demonstrates one of his “crankies” using an amplifer, winds it up and demonstrates how it works] with strings on it and kalimba tines. The crankie festival is a yearly festival that happens at the Creative Alliance.

That’s sort of like something that’s happening in Baltimore that I’m really excited to be part of. It goes beyond visual art, it goes beyond music and engineering. For me, this is a really exciting medium. This is more in line with what the end goal is for me, merging those components. This is the coolest thing I can come up with for now.

EM: Would you imagine being able to find this type of community in any other city?

MM: I’m not sure, but I’m so glad that it just happened that I moved to a place that has so much spirit and charm and uniqueness. It has a grassroots culture that respects the maker.

harborflowers2muirhead

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Author Ethan McLeod is a reporter and editor based in Baltimore. He graduated from American University in Washington D.C. and worked there for several years before moving to Baltimore earlier this year. He is currently associate editor for Baltimore Fishbowl.

Portrait of Muirhead by Mackenzie Elizabeth Ditter

Find more work by Matt Muirhead on his website.

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