UNT Special Collections is excited to announce that Austin-based artist Matthew Magruder will be the keynote speaker at Rethinking the Codex on Saturday, March 28, in Willis Library.
Matthew Magruder is an artist from Austin, TX with a focus on photography, printmaking, design, and integrating these into his book and box structures. He is also the Art Director with HerbalGram magazine, a licensed psychotherapist, and proprietor of Copelo Press. He studied architecture at Texas A&M University and has a master’s in counseling from St. Edward’s University. He currently serves on the board of the Austin Book Arts Center. He has extensive experience teaching photography, printmaking, and book arts workshops across the country. His work is in private and public collections.
Learn more about Matthew from his artist statement below, and join us on March 28 to hear firsthand about his work by registering for Rethinking the Codex.
Artist Statement
“I am a self-taught artist who is motivated to engage in all parts of the process of creating my work. I have always been drawn to the physical act of engaging with materials and tools. My life long artistic and creative pursuits have maintained this tangible physicality through painting, historic handmade photographic processes, printmaking, letterpress printing, and typography,
My photography and other 2-D work is a means to share how I distinctly see and experience the world through intimate and expansive points of view. Over decades of photography, I have learned to trust my process of visually wandering and allow what I capture to distill into the work I want to share. I then compile this into coherent narratives or series surrounding how I perceive and experience natural and man-made spaces. My training as an architect informs the precise construction and combination of these series into a finished book.
I am drawn to the dichotomy of trusting my intuitive self while photographing and then engaging with my meticulous self through my book and box structure. The work I do as a psychotherapist is also deeply entwined with my artistic endeavors. I believe that creativity is inherently part of each of us and can manifest in boundless ways. The end goal of my work is to connect with the viewer in the act of slow, deliberate engagement, and build on an interconnected relationship that can be brought about through the finished piece.”
