ARTIST PROFILE
Matt Ceolin
Anyone who knows Matt Ceolin will tell you that the northern wilderness is something he can never spend much time away from. Spending the extent of his childhood in nature it got into his blood as it does with most people who spend a lot of time in the outdoors here. Early on he began drawing as a means to relate and understand the environment around him and though the methods have evolved the goal is in a lot of ways the same.
Matt attended the Ontario College of Art and Design with the intention to ‘learn how to make anything that came to mind’ and so focused on fabrication methods such as metal, and wood fabrication, mould-making and foundry process, robotics and electronics as well as book binding and printmaking methods. During this time he started up the CV Press, a small private press which has since published over twenty short run artists books and catalogues. After graduating from OCAD’s sculpture installation program Matt retreated back to northern Ontario to focus on his art practice and after a year of studio work went on to complete an MFA at the University of Windsor.
In Windsor the separation from rural northern life and immersion in city life resulted in work focused on what it meant to be ‘northern-rural’ in a ‘southern-urban’ environment. A lot of his work became interested in how video/audio components could add to his sculptural and installation practice.
Usually when asked that infamous question ‘what kind of art do you do?’ the response is that he likes to work with ideas in any medium that suit them best. In 2002 Matt returned to Algoma and continues to work on various bodies of art work. His new work has come to focus on the ecological ideas which were so prevalent in his early interactions with the landscape, as well as the ‘physics of the natural world’. This work has spread from the studio onto the surrounding landscape and includes digital printmaking processes, a return to painting and some major land-based works.
Over the course of the past year Matt has also taken on the Arcadia project – something that he likes to think of as a renovation/sculpture work. This project has taken a nearly derelict building in the city’s downtown area and has established a small whitespace (gallery) for the arts, living spaces and in time studio space, a home for the CV Press and the Arcadia North coffee house (hopefully opening in spring of 2007). For ongoing info on the Arcadia project go to arcproject.blogspot.com
Matt’s whitespace gallery is open to the public Friday from 4 to 7pm and Saturday from 11am to 7pm. The gallery can be contacted at 941-9650 or by emailing arcadiahouse@hotmail.com
