Landscape Interventions: Art by Matthew Rangel
Our featured artist today is Matthew Rangel! Matthew is a mixed-media artist and printmaker who uses maps to explore agricultural constructs and other man-made landscape interventions.
Midway, lithograph on Tyvek Homewrap mounted to Magnani Pescia
Matthew’s works tend to be muted in colour, with heavy use of black and white or sepia-toned images. This makes his occasional uses of red or other colour ink all the more startling and meaningful. I enjoy the vintage-field-notes aesthetic that Matthew cultivates in his work. The artist often writes or draws directly onto a photograph or print, creating the feeling of hastily scribbled notes or discoveries. Matthew’s frequent incorporation of maps and old photographs into his work strengthens this similarity.
The artist’s works have been published in a variety of artist books and magazine publications. I think his works would be wonderfully well-suited as illustrated companions to travel or wilderness-based publications, given the sense of adventure and planning that they are imbued with.
Petroglyph Study, Albuquerque, lithograph and Prismacolor pencil