Matthew Best

Excited to have nine of my recent Madonna collages in this exciting group collage show taking place at the Stockman Gallery at Trinity-On-Main in New Britain, Connecticut.

Artist Talks at 5 p.m., reception 5:30-7 p.m. This show features work by Matthew Best, Matthew Feiner, and Margaret Vaughan
Curated by Melanie Carr. Refreshments, free. The exhibition continues through April 22.

 More information and directions can be found here: http://www.happeninghere.org/stockman
Double Queen, 2015. collage

I didn't really like Madonna until 1989 until I saw her video for "Express Yourself" for the first time. I vividly remember seeing it for the first time, my sister and I were watching MTV and the video aired. The song video were big, lavish, and beautiful. The moment I remember most is the part of the video when she bursts on stage wearing a masculine suit, grabbing her crotch and then opening her jacket to reveal a pink corset. It was electrical. I was hooked. Both my sister and I were in awe. It was a display of power unlike anything we had ever seen. My life was changed forever, I was now obsessed with Madonna.
At the time I was an overweight closeted kid. Madonna was like an explosion to me. She did what she wanted, she wasn't afraid, she didn't care. This was her power. She combined beauty, vulgarity and sex in a daring way. She was everything I feared and wanted to be.
My room became a shrine to her. I saved every picture I could find of her and taped them to the walls. I made drawings, paintings, and collages of her. I even made a 20lb plaster bust of her. I still credit her as one of the reasons I became an artist. She gave me courage to express myself.
I naively wasn't aware of was Madonna status as a gay icon. I didn't realize that by identifying myself as a Madonna fan I was in some ways outing myself as gay before I was fully able to really express it. Later on this is way I have again started making art with images of Madonna, to embrace being gay. To take something I wasn't fully aware of and celebrate it, to take naive obsession to turn it to outright veneration. I want to make the power I saw in these images in my youth visible to others.

detail of Seeress, 2015, collage