ART
MATTHEW MARCOT By M arsin M ogielski
I
first saw Matthew Marcot’s art at an event on the Upper East Side, and I had to purchase a piece. I was intrigued by the symbols, colors, art-form, and what it meant not just to the artist, but to me. I took my time to listen to everything Marcot said with passion regarding his work. He signed the artwork for me and my niece Mila. I had a feeling that Mila would appreciate the simplicity of it, yet would try to understand what each stroke, symbol, and color represents. When asked what kind of artist Matthew Marcot is, he says “I work primarily in semiotics and collage. I draw on ancient art forms that were based on superstition and religiosity, such as African sculpture, religious manuscripts, and cave drawings.” Marcot continues, “the most telling part to me as an artist is that, whether someone understands these ideas or not, there is always a visceral reaction to my art. I see it all the time at shows, where I encounter art-educated viewers, and when I show my work at my studio located in Sheridan Square in the West Village, where often people have no knowledge of this.” In his work, Marcot is seeking to give visual expression to unseen ritualistic and cosmic forces that both underlie and govern modern civilization. He believes that it resonates with people on both, a conscious and unconscious level, whether they feel they understand it, or not.
Marcot is not the first artist to do this. The New York School of the Abstract Expressionists were he was inspired by the idea of bringing expression back to the roots of primal immediacy. But as a Gen Z dropout whose greatest wish growing up was to have an art studio in the West Village (and not own a cell phone), I can see that Marcot’s point of view is unique. “I am fueled by my desire to explore the essence of what it means to be human in an increasingly de-humanized world. Through my embrace of primal expression, such as my own brand of hieroglyphic-like calligraphy, biomorphic semiotics, and geometric portraiture, I bring the human back to their roots. In a world that humans are steadfastly making less habitable for our species —decimating our forests, oceans, as well as our life force, our climate and air — I find it essential for art to confront our predicament.” Marcot’s art is not about confronting the outward environment but reevaluating our inner environment—which the outward destruction is a direct result of. Marcot says, “my art is a confrontation of being human itself. With the impersonality of advancing technologies, we are being taken even further out from our humanness in a time where it is essential we begin to harness it. My work is my contribution to this, and to remind people of what it is to be human.” Learn more at marcotart.com and follow @therealmarcot.
Matthew Marcot at his studio in the West Village
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