Matthew Monk

In my work, the purity of ideas collides with the impurity of the physical world. I am influenced by all things decayed, worn, eroded, weathered, murky, humble and imperfect – particularly as they engage in dialogue with order, clarity, structure, systems, rationality and logic. I work primarily with discarded and found materials, seeking to uncover meaning in the meaningless and value in the worthless. My work is the result of cumulative layers of additive and subtractive processes including painting, gluing, scraping, sanding, tearing, erasing, correcting and patching. A rich and complex history of each piece is rendered evident through its accretion of these unexpected materials and varied processes.

Matthew Monk is an artist and graphic designer in Providence, Rhode Island. In his design practice, he specializes in book and catalogue design for the arts and architecture for clients including the National Gallery of Art, Yale University Press, the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, Wellesley College, Distributed Art Publishers, and the Museum of Art at Rhode Island School of Design. Matthew is a Professor of Graphic Design at the Rhode Island School of Design, where he has taught since 1991. Originally from North Carolina, he holds an undergraduate degree in graphic design from North Carolina State University and an MFA in graphic design from Rhode Island School of Design. With over tweny-five years of experience in graphic design, Matthew’s work has won numerous awards, including the prestigious American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) 50 Books/50 Covers award to the fifty best-designed books of 2006. His work has been featured in Communication Arts magazine, Print, Metropolis and many other books and publications.

Matthew has exhibited his painting and mixed-media work extensively and his work is in numerous private collections.