Matt Magee

Green Excavation

2019

Matt Magee is an American contemporary artist who is best known for his minimal abstract geometric paintings, sculptures, prints, assemblages, murals and photographs. He was born in Paris, France in 1961 and moved from there to Tripoli, Libya and then to London. In 1984 Magee moved to Brooklyn where he maintained a studio until 2012. Magee currently lives and works in Phoenix. Over a career spanning more than four decades, Matt Magee has experimented widely with abstract and conceptual art practices. Drawing inspiration from the 1960s minimalist movement, Magee combines his fascination with language and his command of design sensibilities in carefully arranged compositions and sculptural installations. Magee’s compositions are organizations of shapes that have been informed by personal history, numerology, and language. Within these conceptual spreadsheets, abacuses and hieroglyphics are reminders of the artist’s hand. His visual language relates to early hard-edge abstraction and finds inspiration in contemporary scientific, ecological and technological ideas. Magee has an MFA from Pratt Institute and a BA in Art History from Trinity University. Magee was awarded two resident fellowships (2007 and 2015) at the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, and was recipient of a New York State Foundation for the Arts Grant in 2002 and of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in 1991. His work has been exhibited worldwide including at the Tamarind Institute, Albuquerque; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Phoenix Art Museum; Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale; Dallas Center for Contemporary Art; Contemporary Museum, Baltimore; and the Albright Knox Gallery, Buffalo, among many others. Matt Magee is the subject of a monograph published by Radius Books in 2018.