Matt Bollinger

Ithaca-based artist Matt Bollinger works from a complex interdisciplinary base: as painter, draftsman, animator, and elegist, he creates work that straddles the projects of both visual art and narrative fiction. Buoyed by an early interest in American modernism as well as personal and familial origins in the Midwest, Bollinger tells stories by and large of America’s rural working class. Each is composed through a bricolage of memory, family history, direct observation, art-historical research, and literary invention. Through empathetic and meticulously crafted vignettes, Bollinger’s work offers poignant reflections on issues of labor, class, and the passage of time, encouraging viewers to sift through his vivid, often conflicted pastorales for a clear imperative of their own.