Matthew Best

After a productive and busy summer I have spent much of the Fall sketching. Nothing finished, nothing overly resolved. Not even worrying if it is good or bad. It is purely about generating new ideas and sometimes reconnecting with older ideas that never were given enough attention.

With sketching I find the "more is more" mentallity helpful. Just generate...rip it up if you have to. No one will see the majority of them anyway. The beauty of paper and ink is that they are cheap, and in the case of altered books, free.

Studio shot, taken this summer.

A growing body of work, most of it from this Summer, a few of the smaller ones from this Fall.

Drawing that covers three books. An experiment. It begin in the altered book on the left, grew to the larger sketchbook on the right, up to the smaller sketchbook above that and below onto my work table. why not?

Ink drawing, 2011. 5 by 7 inches.

Ink Drawing, 2011. 5 by 7 inches.

Now We Read, altered book page, 2011.

In leafing through a sketchbook I came across a series of notes that lay out most of the aims of my current body of work. These notes move all over the place, but the central idea is the use of nature and abstraction as a means of exploring mental states; projecting the inner onto the outer world as well as exploring the parts of one's own psyche and/or body that are foreign and uncontrollable; drives, genetics, disease.

Page one, looking as tangled masses (vines, tent caterpillar nests, cordyceps) as a representation of inner conflict/ outer decay.