Baker Artist Portfolios

Jenn Figg and Matthew McCormack are collaborative, interdisciplinary artist-researchers investigating light energy and universal geometries. Our backgrounds are rooted in the material experiences and craft methodologies of textiles and glass. While we identify our creative heritage with the feminist fibers movement of the 1960’s and the American Studio Glass movement respectively, we draw directly from a myriad of inspirational sources beyond the arts field. Science and engineering are foundational. The imagery of deep space discoveries of the Hubble and James Webb telescopes that help prove structural space-time equations and the absolutism of supermassive black holes informs our visual choices. We are investigating the novel hypothesis of silica nanoparticles and documentation of dark ocean phytoplankton. Finally, a kaleidoscope of possibilities from authors like Octavia Butler, Nnedi Okorafor, and Ben Okri nudge our imagination to extend to unknown systems of experiential framing.

We see a connective geometry between oceanic microorganisms and celestial structures, visualized and manifested with expressive forms that unite the machine with the hand. We challenge material culture by erasing boundaries between the robotic and the organic. Textiles are made with a knitting machine, threads are pulled to reshape the foundation which is then embroidered and beaded. Traditional percussion instruments are reimagined via 3D printing and embedded with handmade piezo driven LED assemblies. Familiar forms and relational experiences challenge the expected with technologically adept high-craft handwork and don’t reside comfortably in the realms of art, craft, or engineering. Our work is a confabulation of the wild dreamer, the resolute scientist, the avid engineer, and the compulsive creator, taking sketches out of their personal notebooks and giving them form. 

Our practice responds to developing technologies, integrating creative software, data collection and analysis systems, digital fabrication, motion control and embedded systems. Together we work with other visual artists, architects, composers, dancers, musicians, stage designers, scientists, and engineers to manifest new forms. Recent sculptures and installations employ dynamic, real-time data as material substrate, and other major works explore sustainable kinetics as landscape, performance, and conduits for spiritual connection.

We have exhibited widely since beginning our collaboration in 2009. Selected local exhibitions in Baltimore and the surrounding region include Light City 2019, 2018, 2016; the Baltimore Public Works Museum Building; School 33 Art Center; the Towson Arts Collective; Gallery Q (Johns Hopkins Eisenhower Library); the Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building (Washington, DC); Project4 Gallery (Washington, DC); a collaboration with the dance troupe Step Afrika! at the Hartke Theater and the Atlas Theater (Washington, DC); the Arlington Art Center (Arlington, VA), the Open Gallery (Silver Spring, MD); the Stephanie Ann Roper Gallery (Frostburg, MD); and the Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts (Wilmington, DE). Other selected national venues include Rutgers University (New Brunswick, NJ); the Dlectricity Festival (Detroit, MI); the Ingenuity Festival (Cleveland, OH); the Gund Gallery (Gambier, OH); the Dublin Arts Council (Dublin, OH); The Print Center (Philadelphia, PA); the Toledo Museum of Art (Toledo, OH); the Columbus Center for Science and Industry (Columbus, OH); the Franklin Park Conservatory (Columbus, OH); Ferris State University (Big Rapids, MI); the Phipps Conservatory (Pittsburgh, PA); the Museum of Contemporary Art (Virginia Beach, VA); the Museum of Contemporary Art (Cleveland, OH); and the Art House at the Jones Center (Austin, TX). International exhibitions and screenings include the Dublin Electronic Arts Festival (Dublin, Ireland); the Digital Fringe (Melbourne, Australia); The New Media Institute at the Banff Center (Banff, Canada); Small House Screening (Sao Paulo, Brazil); and the National Museum of Glass (Eskisehir, Turkey).

Selected residencies and awards include a residency at Pittsburgh Glass Center (Pittsburgh, PA), the Municipal Art Society of Baltimore City Public Art Prize, the Centennial Artist in Residence at the Schoodic Institute (Acadia National Park, ME); the 2016 Toolmaker Residency at Signal Culture (Owego, NY); the Mesaros Visiting Artist at Kenyon College (Gambier, OH); Accessibility 2009 (Cleveland, TN); the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Artist Residency (New York, NY); the MacDowell Colony Artist Residency (Peterborough, NH); the School of Emerging Technology Seed Funding Grant (Towson University, MD); the Great Lakes College Association New Directions Initiative (Kenyon College, OH); the Franklin Park Conservatory Sculpture Grant (Columbus, OH); the Brython-Davis Research Fellowship (UCSB); the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, Visual, Performing & Media Arts Award (UCSB); and Light City Grants (Baltimore, MD). We have permanent public art installations nationally.

Figg holds a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, an MFA from the University of California, and a Ph.D. in Media, Art and Text from the Virginia Commonwealth University. She is a Professor of Art at Towson University. McCormack holds a BFA in Glass from the Ohio State University and an MFA from Towson University.

Please visit our website to see more of our work: http://mccormackandfigg.com/.