Matthew McGaughey

(2021) 15’

three channel HD video installation with quadraphonic sound

(documentation of installation below)

Taking on the role of “the son my father always wanted but never got”, I spent 2 days confined to a nondescript Airbnb at the height of the pandemic. The space exists as a complex territory. In one way, it provides safety from the outside world with its disease, and social expectations. However, its privacy also presents the opportunity for failure, and self-sabotage.

The character, Matt, is flat, emotionless, self-focused, and unaware. Beginning with an absurd, repetitive monolog to the camera, he comes unglued. Rocking, crawling, and vomiting, Matt regresses animally, alone except for the prying eye of the camera. As the character breaks down, I, as the artist, simultaneously build him materially, making a dummy representation with clothing, paper, and PolyFil. As Matt erupts and leaks, Matthew the artist, fills him back up trying to hold everything together. The result is an immersive 3 channel video which voyeuristically documents this secret struggle.

Note: In this version of the video, all three screens appear as tiles in a single channel format.

(2021)

Office chairs, clothing, Poly-Fil, polyurethane plastic, windshield wiper motor, robot vacuum, child gate, sound

In Throne Room (2021), the rocking of stacked chairs is precariously driven by a motor that continually burns out due to the intensity of the motion and weakness of the device. After a cool down of the transformer, the rocking begins again. The jerky actions jostle the figure inclining it to drop its filling onto the floor. The head/vacuum pushes the stuffing around the room extending the sculpture further and further in space.

(2021)

Wax, wood, vinyl, silicone, foam, sandbags, duct work, fog machine

In Big Shoes to Fill (2021), precise wax castings of the shoes, and pill bottles from the video installation (Working from Home) sit statically in front of a white “set”. As a mirror, a smaller wall stands a small distance away. A rough silicone casting of a foot and leg hide behind it. Held together by dissection pins, the cast skin is loose around the rigid foam supports. How do the surfaces of these sets contain subjects? What is the relationship between behind and in front? Can this binary be broken down and if so, how?