July WCC Artist In Residence Workshop: Matt Magee

The Westport Cultural Council is pleased to announce the second of three summer Artists in Residence at Westport Woods Conservation Park. From July 1, 2021to July 21st, visitors are invited to witness artist Matt Magee in action at the park located at 573 Adamsville Road.  Matt will be welcoming visitors on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday from 10-1 pm. The residency is a unique collaboration between the Westport Cultural Council (WCC) and the Westport Land Conservation Trust (WLCT) made possible by the generous support of the Helen Ellis Trust. Each artist in residence will immerse themselves in the beauty of the park landscape to create separate public installations for visitors to enjoy. 

Matt’s award-winning career spans over 4 decades.  His work explores themes of language, coding and repetition.  The son of a geologist and archaeologist, his childhood was spent traversing the globe from Turkey to Libya to Native American reservations in the American West. Matt has an eye for found objects, be they from an urban street, a beach, or an arid Southwestern plain. Pocketed, they find their way to shelves in the artist’s studio, where they await possible formation into works of art. Drawing inspiration from 1960’s minimalist sculptors with an emphasis on accumulative iterative processes like stacking, repetition and sequencing, the sculptures and paintings have an imbedded language and are to be interpreted as a means of record keeping and tracking the passage of time.

Since the early 1980’s Matt has repurposed commonplace materials such as aluminum cans and detergent bottles in his studio practice. His project for the Westport residency will use these materials resulting in additional awareness of recycling and offering alternate solutions. A large root form will slowly evolve and grow from woven aluminum cans and strands of cut plastic detergent bottles will be wired together to create 21st century information graphics.

Matt will host two workshops entitled, “It takes a Village” on Saturday July 10 & Sunday July 11 10am – 3pm each day. A collaborative art workshop using repurposed non-traditional materials. The objective is to work together to create a large banner composed of beach plastic, specifically plastic drink and detergent bottles. Participants will cut the bottles into shapes and string together the forms with wire. The banner will be suspended and help raise awareness of the large amount of plastics littering our oceans.

Participants are encouraged to bring their own plastic bottles with them to the workshop, although we will have some available to use as well. Please bring good quality scissors if you have them. You must sign up in advance to participate.

If you would like to attend Matts Workshop on July 10-11 at the Westport Woods- 10-12 pm, please sign up here: https://westportlandtrust.org/upcoming-events/

Matts closing talk is on Thursday, July 22nd 6pm at the DeDee Shattuck gallery_1 Partners’ Lane, Westport, MA 02790

Merri Cyr

Originally from Adamsville, Rhode Island, Merri Cyr lived in New York City for 30 years working as a fine art and commercial photographer. Primarily focused on portraits of musicians and artists, her clients include Disney, Columbia Records, Sony, Vimeo, Warner Brothers, Verve, Polygram, Rolling Stone, among many others. Merri was in house photographer from 2009-2019 for Apple Events in NYC Soho store, photographing actors, musicians, designers and movie folks for podcasts. As part of an Apple events team, Merri worked in tandem with creatives collaborating on artwork for the Apple website, photographing more that 800 events. In addition, she is author of two photography books and her work is represented by Morrison Hotel Gallery in New York and Los Angeles.

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