Unknown Landscapes: Matthew Rangel
Gossip-Rocks, lithograph and digital print
Matthew Rangel is a New Mexico- based artist who works with printmaking techniques to create images that reflect on his time spent growing up and studying art in the San Joaquin Valley of California. The images that Matthew produces express a divide between the human-made and natural aspects of the area, and the way these opposing sides function together, or collide.
Due East over Stokes Mountain, lithograph, digital and chine colle print
Matthew often uses lithography to create his prints, combining printmaking with photography and drawing to create prints that follow a structure reminiscent of the grid-lines on a map. In his series A Transect – Due East, he takes historical, geological and interpersonal information gathered on a series of cross-country hikes, and creates images bringing together the data. The resulting prints seem to me like they could belong in an explorer’s log book – and yet the meaning of each is still obscured, skewed by a sparse use of notation combined with images of unknown landscapes.
Due East through Chimney Spring Ranch, lithograph and collage
Matthew currently teaches printmaking at the University of New Mexico. See more of his works on his artist portfolio.