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Interview by Masha Danova
Photos by Mark Woods
Topics his art covers include globalization, loss of resources, basic elements of nature, landscapes, world economy, and the uncertainty of the future and ways to cope with it. He expresses his ideas by means of wood only.
According to his press release, Matt’s new exhibition, ‘The Empty Quarter’ at the Platform Gallery (www.platformgallery.com) in Seattle, “invokes the link between an abundance of goods and products and industrial effects on the planet."
It includes four works: ‘Shoulder My Burden’, ‘Ida y Vuelta’, ‘Epochs of Landscape on Its Way to Becoming Commodity’ and ‘Empty Quarter’. They’re all sold at quite high prices. Sellars, who began to sell his work only recently, still makes his living through carpentery though – he thinks that people shouldn’t abandon hard labor.
What’s most wonderful about Matt is that he manages to combine this roughness and masculinity with intellect and mildness. Just like wood, being hard and looking soft. A perfect junction of artist and his material.
While in Seattle on Nov. 5 2008, I had an opportunity to talk with Matt and ask him a few questions about his most recent exhibition.
Let’s talk about the piece “Shoulder my burden”. To me, it’s a symbol of the third world countries half-sinking the imperialistic ship that they are at the same time supporting. Was that what you originally intended?
To me , the shipping containers being under the ship represent the very third world economies, and the ship represents the luxury economies like the U.S. I did see that as a hopeful ascendancy – third world people being able to ascend to a higher place. I didn’t really see it as sinking the imperialistic ship, but I like that take on it.
After Obama’s victory, this work of yours gains more sense. Obama is, in fact, a leader of a huge community that has been undermined for a long time. But now this community leads the ship.
Yeah, I knew it’d be interesting to see how the interpretation of the work would be after the election, depending on the outcome. Just like a lot of other things.
Your other work inside this exhibition, “Ida y Vuelta” (“Round Trip”), looks like an industrial theater, even with some antique associations. This colored-boxes construction also creates an image of instability of the world system.
I didn’t think of it as so much of an architecture. It’s more of a replication of shipping process, a reflection of circle motion. Americans keep buying luxury items to use them up and throw them away, not actually producing anything. I wanted the construction to be unstable, because I don’t think that this is a very long-term economical solution.
If you don’t approve of this non-producing system, why do you still live here? You could just as well move out of here and get rid of the sense of guilt.
I think that sense of guilt is truly subjective. I don’t feel it, because I don’t really take part in it all. I do love this country; it’s provided a lot of opportunities for me. I think it’s inevitable to feel a certain sense of guilt though, because I do get a roof over my head, I do get a warm shower. You know, there were a lot of times when I thought, what if McCain won – what then? Do you just abandon ship and decide to move on? Or, do you stay and try to change things?
On the election night I met a Ukranian girl living here, and she said that if McCain had won, she would have moved to Canada at once.
It certainly crosses your mind. But, I also think wherever you go, you’re going to find the same problems.
How can people solve these problems? Becoming vegan, trying to consume less?
That was a question my friend asked me while I was preparing the exhibition. ‘What solutions do you provide?’ That was a good question I couldn’t honestly answer, because I’m not exactly looking for solutions. I think the artist’s job is to present the questions, to present what’s wrong to make people think about these things. There will be small everyday changes. Stop using so much plastic, stop driving so much, ride your bike. We can actually slow that down. Yeah, that’s kind of an idealistic point of view.
In America everything is excessive – portions, people, pictures, even PR - but the country doesn’t really have any real reason for that. It doesn’t have enough of its’ own resources to live up to the image that it’s created.
It’s Western expansion. We’ve always moved west and sought to consume the resources there until we have stashed empty areas. So, maybe it just does fit into the whole identity that we picture for ourselves. I think that’s changing. Cities are becoming more dense. In the 1970s, cities were growing out flat, whereas now there’s a push in urban areas to grow up, more like the European cities. We have got to change.
You live in a very urban-looking city. How do you feel about that?
I grew up in Idaho, then moved to Spokane and then went to college in Seattle and stayed here. I still feel like I’m from farmland in this urban center.
That’s why you use wood, as a way to go back to your roots?
Yes. Wood’s always been a material that appealed to me. I’ve worked with steel and stuff like that, but I always come back to wood. Because, it’s the most amazing natural material. It’s like a ready-made, as well as being beautiful. You barely have to transform it to make it operate as an aesthetic material.
What is the process of creation like for you?
I take shapes from my daily existence. I draw and draw and draw– it’s almost like a road-activity, and then I flesh out shapes. Certain shapes are always going to come to mind. You draw them and you figure out why, where’s that coming from, what am I looking at everyday that’s influencing me. Eventually these shapes reflect my daily existence.