Matthew Brandt and Christine Nguyen, Garden Picture 4, 2024, archival pigment inks on paper, 18.5 x 15 in. (47 x 38.1 cm)
Photo-based artist Matthew Brandt creates his artworks using physical elements from the very subjects he photographs. Among different sources, the artist finds inspiration in landscape photography of the American West, especially its correlation to the methods of printing and making images during photography’s infancy in the mid-nineteenth century. In this vein of historical engagement, Brandt revives traditional photographic processes, including handmade papermaking and gum-bichromate, which predates film in the timeline of photographic technology. Much of Brandt’s oeuvre is made from the subjects it depicts: prints may be soaked in water from the lakes they picture, or the pigments affixed to the print may be derived from charcoal made from trees in the image. At times, the artist’s process goes so far as rendering night skies in cocaine on black velvet, or baking tar-based images in the sun. This engagement with the natural world and derived materials also introduces an element of chance to Brandt’s work, as the media resist control and create new, unexpected features.
Christine Nguyen was born and raised in California and currently resides in Aurora, CO and also works in Long Beach, CA. She is a lover of animals, plants, and nature.