Matthew's profile

I was born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts in 1970. Raised in Phoenix, Arizona until I was 10 or 11, then spent the remainder of my youth south of Ketchum, Idaho. When I was able to, in my early twenties, moved to Seattle, Washington, on my own and in pursuit of Art School. Quickly realizing that I could not afford schooling, I started to teach myself photography through books and experimentation. After working with photographers such as Lance Mercer and Charles Peterson as a photo-assistant, I began to make a living shooting predominately in the music industry. While working for magazines and doing album art, I began to use a 1970 Polaroid Sx-70, the first of which I found in a thrift store for 5 dollars. At that point, Polaroid was still producing the now gone Sx-70 Time Zero and I started making collages and fitting the Polaroids together in grids. When the white masking is removed, access to the emulsion side of the image allows etching, ink transfers, and several other techniques to create alternative imaging with the images themselves.
After 11 years in Seattle, I moved to New York, living in Brooklyn at the start and concentrating on creating journal style books, which hold experiments, ideas and memory keepsakes, and these Polaroid/Paintings, which deal primarily with childhood nostalgia. Living in such a cultural hub, I began to travel. Spending large pieces of time in Cuba, Mexico, India and various other locations, the craft of journal making branched across into my "Paintings" and vice versa. Having a bulk buying contract with Polaroid helped me build a cache of film and also provided me with a heads up for first dibs when Polaroid discontinued manufacturing any film. I lived in New York for 10 years working this way and continue to do so after moving to Baltimore over 5 years ago where I live with my girlfriend and 2 boys, ages 8 and 2 and work in my Remington studio.

In addition to being nominated twice for the Grand Gala and Exhibition "LUX" at Maryland Art Place in 2012, I recieved an Individual Artist Award for Photography by the Maryland State Arts Council the same year.


Matthew Kern

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