Matthew McGuinness (b. 1976 NYC) received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York. While enrolled, he co-founded the award winning design studio The Visual Mafia. Inspired by the "total" making of the Bauhaus movement and the vitality demonstrated during an examination of social conscience found in Paris, they experimented with the fine line that exists between a commercial and political message.
McGuinness went on to co-found the Brooklyn based collaborative, The 62, which was rooted in making experiential and participatory based interventionist design works. They were participants in AIGAs 2005 Fresh Dialogue Friendly Fire, which was produced as a book by Princeton Architectural Press.
The 62's projects received funding from The Bronx Museum of the Arts, The Nathan Cummings Foundation, Conjunction Arts, The Greenwall Foundation, SCOPE Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. Meanwhile, they kept the studio lights on by working for clients such as Puma, Luella Bartley Sony Ericsson, The Wall Street Journal, James Victore Inc., Colors Magazine, and Metro International Newspapers while consulting for agencies G2, Ogilvy and Young & Rubicam.
McGuinness's urban projects blur the vocational boundaries between design and art, competition and cooperation and ultimately between reality and or fantasy. By building a community of individuals and businesses that are linked to the arts, McGuinness demonstrates that social engagement in the process of creating art can be as valuable as the art itself.
His personal works have received support from SCOPE Arts (both NY and Miami), The Greenwall Foundation and Conjunction Arts. He received an Emerging Artist Grant from SCOPE Arts Miami in 2007 and was a finalist for the NYC-based Reema Hort Mann Visual Arts Grant in 2008. In 2008 he was invited to become a member of the Artist Pension Trust in New York.
In 2009 he moved his studio to London where he has begun a new body of work, Gourmandizing London, which explores the social order of food. For this work, he was shortlisted for the Salon Art Prize in 2011. Two years later, he expanded the project producing recipe-based murals throughout the city, celebrating the breaking of bread and investigating how people in various communities create new concoctions in their kitchens.
Recently Matthew gave a series of successful artist-led workshops at the Tate Modern, via its Hyperlink Festival, using techniques found in contemporary illustration and graphic design to visually articulate the connection between a memory to a favorite dish and an emotional association to a plate of food prepared by a loved family member.
He has taught at the School of Visual Arts and University of Southern California Santa Cruz. He also guest lectured and hosted workshops at Centro Desino in Mexico City, Fabrica in Italy, Tate Modern in London and L'École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.
Selected solo exhibitions include
Gourmandizing London at Bearspace Gallery, London (2011)
Casper Disasters at Electric Blue Gallery in London (2011)
Casper Disasters at Greene Contemporary, New York (2009)
Rudolf: A Salutary Pipeline at Light & Sie, Dallas (2009)
Rudolf: A Salutary Pipeline at Rare Gallery, New York (2008)
Rebicycling at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York (2004)
Selected Public Projects and Interventions
Gourmandizing London support by Pocket Places / Sustrans, London (2014)
Gourmandizing London Community Enterprise Fund in Camberwell Post Office, London (2014)
Gourmandizing London at Peckham Platform, London (2011)
Subversive Complicity at The Lab, San Francisco (2008)
The Bureau of Misdirected Destiny at Site Projects for the Arts Corcoran, Washington DC (2007)
Selected Group Exhibitions
War at Jacob’s Island, London. (2013)
Salon Art Prize 2011 at Matt Roberts Arts, London (2011)
Shape and Material at Vyner Studio, London. (2010)
Ultrasonic IV: Fresh Perspectives at Mark Moore Gallery, Santa Monica, California (2010)
Other America at Exit Art, New York (2005)
Matthew McGuinness lives and works in London.
For additional information about this artist, visit Mutual Art
