Jonathan Matteson doesn’t need to showcase his art in a gallery for viewers to experience his work.
Coming from a marketing background, Matteson said he decided to take the skills he learned to create art via video format.
“This is the digital age, this is the information age, this is the computer age. So, to reflect that as an artist, I want to be an artist of the digital,” Matteson said.
Matteson said he creates sound pieces with patterns on television screens, displaying his work on YouTube.
Along with marketing, Matteson said his inspiration stemmed from a love of music and video games.
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University of Idaho graduate student, Ashley Vaughn discusses her art work, which will be at the Asterisk MFA show, in the Graduate Art Studio House, Tuesday.
“I felt like I was using color, texture and all those things in the past,” Matteson said. “But I was using it to convince people to buy things they didn’t need.”
While viewers will have the opportunity to see his art Friday in the University of Idaho Prichard Art Gallery, they can continue to experience that work further through his YouTube channel. There, they can change the video’s speed or adjust its quality, he said.
Like Matteson, Ashley Vaughn also creates art using video. But she focuses more on the everyday, awkward moments many people experience.
“I think we tend to isolate ourselves as being the awkward person and that’s fine but in reality pretty much everyone is awkward,” Vaughn said. “Any new experience tends to be strange and awkward.”
Vaughn said she thinks society needs to make a change, which is why she focuses her work on the uncomfortable parts of life.
She said her work is supposed to be familiar to viewers, as well as vague.
“I think it’s such an important marker of our generation — my generation. We are just so afraid to feel uncomfortable cause we see it as a bad thing,” Vaughn said. “But really, it is incredibly important to being human.”
Rather, she said these awkward experiences are necessary.
Both artists will present their art at 5 p.m. Friday at the Prichard Art Gallery during the opening reception for “Asterisk,” an MFA thesis exhibition.
Joining the two is Logan Clancy, whose printmaking focuses on spirituality.
University of Idaho graduate student, Logan Brashar discusses her art work in the Graduate Art Studio House, Tuesday.
Clancy said her world was turned upside down last year, causing her to have to rediscover her authentic self. She changed up her lifestyle and found a new way of living, which helped her art take off.
“Within doing so, my art practices really evolved. I was singing, dancing, moving my body and just feeling really good and healthy,” Clancy said. “The art was coming to me more. It came very intuitively.”
Clancy said she was meditating frequently and had meta-physical experiences through visions and dreams. As a result, she said her perception of nature and reality changed as well.
“These meta-physical experiences helped me find my sense of purpose again through my work. Discovering (how) to love myself, because I am a full person and I don’t need anybody,” Clancy said. “That was my whole spiritual journey. That really fed into my work.”
Clancy said she wants people viewing her artwork to feel uplifted and celebratory of her “journey of self-love.”
The two-hour reception is the last step for the three MFA students before graduation, where they will then begin the next chapter of their lives. Their art will be in the Prichard until May 11.
“It’s been a seven-year journey … and I was a high school drop-out,” Matteson said, “For me, to walk away with some credibility to start a new career, that is what I’m most excited about.”
Lindsay Trombly can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @ lindsay_trombly