Matthew Linden King

Region: MFA Annual

Website: http://www.matthewlindenking.com

City / State: Savannah, GA

I am interested in the underlying association between the spoken word, the sung word, and the painted image. I am primarily inspired by a recent musical movement that pairs centuries-old hymn texts with contemporary folk and rock tunes. In this pairing, the integrity of the lyrical structure and the theology of a hymn text remain intact while the tone of its dissemination is altered to accommodate a new audience. Considering this union in my own work, I rely on the subject matter, structure, and cadence of hymn texts to guide the creation of the paintings, all the while exploring contemporary materials and processes to communicate the relevance of a hymn’s contents to me today. Many of these texts were never paired with music, so as I reference them in my work, my paintings become visual manifestations of theological content traditionally paired with a musical language. In my case, the lexicon has been transferred to paint and the participant shifts from hearing the content to seeing it on a surface.