Matthew Sage

Hope Gangloff

“I feel like concept usually distracts from the form.”

Auguste Lepere

They have the most amazing collection of Lepere woodblock prints at the Carnegie.

Mantle (2012)

This installation explores the idea of non-memento mementos. Objects that do not necessarily have specific sentimental memories attached to them, but rather are important simply because they are constant. At some point, these things stop being recognized as objects, and instead, become part of the setting. As part of the stage of one’s life, they absorb the experiences occurring in the space around them. In this way these seemingly meaningless objects gain importance and significance.

This was my final project for my Miniature Worlds class (totally irrelevant to the class, but all good), and I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out, I spent hours upon hours meticulously matching quarter inch strips of wallpaper…

More photos/the rest of my portfolio here.

top of the world

America, As Imagined by an 18 Year Old Girl

This map serves as an exploration of how perceptions match up to reality. The map is based upon how I believe the United States of America to look, drawn with my left hand, from memory without any reference. Fabric laser cut into accurate representations of each state were then sewn to conform to the “imagined” shape, and were then filled with plaster to form topographical mountains and valleys. The map forces reality and our flawed conceptions to confront each other, and coexist into the same space. Darker colors represent states in which I felt more “confident” of the geography of, while the lighter colors denote states with which I was less familiar. 

More photos, and more of my work here.

Current- Beili Liu

“10 glass globes filled with a mixture of salt, water, and carbon powder. Salt crystal grows along the globe surface while water evaporates. Salt is white, carbon is black, water is clear, water dissolves salt, carbon traces rupture and drift. The materials perform a subtle and gradual change through time.”

To do before I leave Pittsburgh for the summer: 

• Put put golf and spare change day with Braden
• Visit the Natural History Museum
• Finish five art projects
• Pull my shit together for art awards
• Not fail Econ
• Talk to the math department about taking 3d calc over the summer
• A final trip to Peace Love and Little Donuts

A project I did a few months back. I’ve been thinking about this quote for a long time now, its been festering the back corner of my brain since I first read it as a child.  I’m fascinated by these small, insignificant, daily catastrophes. Minuscule tragedies that are both irrelevant and quietly devastating. Constantly I feel like my life is on the brink of falling apart,  and that only through sheer willpower am I holding it all together.

In this piece I shattered a coffee cup, and used the shards of ceramic to rebuild it again, holding it together with corn syrup. The cup was then filled with coffee, the hot liquid dissolving the corn syrup and allowing the cup to fall back to pieces. This was repeated several times, the soiled tablecloths from each time were tacked to the wall as a remnant of process, to be seen in companion to the video of the process. 

I am interested by the ritualistic quality of the process, the futility of rebuilding something knowing that it will be destroyed, the dedication to trying to make the perfect broken object.

To see more pictures, and more of my work in general, you can see my portfolio here.