Matthew Brandt

Perfect Bound with Jennifer Yoffy

Matthew Brandt is a mad scientist/brilliant image-maker/pure delight. Oddly, we talk about poo a lot on this episode, but it kind of works. We also talk a lot about the creative process and parsing out the good ideas from the not-good-yet ideas. It's human and inspiring. Take a listen.
Calling his approach "a little bit messy and experimental," Matthew Brandt produces large-scale photographs through labor-intensive processes recalling the 19th-century origins of photography, often incorporating the physical matter of the subject itself. Attuned to the history of his medium — and its resolute physicality — and inspired by classical American landscape photographs, Brandt traverses the West, photographing and collecting material samples from nature and cities. The reciprocal relationships that Brandt creates between his subjects and the materials used to represent them are always conceptually grounded, often in response to social and environmental issues. He is deeply inquisitive, even fearless, in his exploration of subjects, materials, and processes, reinvigorating the medium of photography with a sense of wonder.

Through his work, Brandt poses a fundamental question about his magical-seeming medium: what is a photograph?

Matthew Brandt received his BFA from Cooper Union in 2004 and MFA from UCLA in 2008. Brandt has been the subject of several institutional solo and group shows and is in the permanent collections of many important museums and private collections. Matthew Brandt lives and works in Los Angeles.