My work inhabits the liminal space between the crafted artifact and the natural world. Materials like ash wood, steel, and bronze are not merely media but storytellers, carrying histories as much as they shape form. I am drawn to processes that reveal the tension between control and surrender - steam-bending, casting, erosion, decay. These methods allow the material to speak, to resist, and to mark time. In pieces like Effusion, Reclamation, and What’s Left, the evidence of process such as melted ice, wood’s deterioration, or metal flowing leaves traces of temporality and transformation. There is a contrast between the natural and the constructed - in line, form, and content, mirroring the parallels between the fragility of memory, the body’s fallibility, the decay inherent in environments under pressure.
Conceptually, my work acts as both witness and mediator. I respond to ecological, social, and material histories - the devastation of ash trees by invasive species, the reshaping of land by human hands, the quiet imprint of time. My goal isn’t to impose meaning, but to offer a space for reflection - on how we inhabit the world, on how we remember, and on the inevitability of change. Through material and form, I hope to make the ephemeral feel tangible, if only for a moment.
Biography
Matthew Vivirito lives, teaches, and maintains a studio practice in Milwaukee, WI. Born and raised in Illinois, he lived in the western states of Colorado and California for ten years before becoming a full time artist and educator. Matthew has created a diverse body of work responding to the varied places and environments he has resided within. His work is an exploration of materials, memory, and site-specific content responding to these environments.
Matthew is currently a faculty member at the Pack School of the Arts at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. He exhibits work regionally and nationally and was recently shown in the New York Times for his piece Framework as part of the Wormfarm Institute’s Farm/Art Dtour. He has received the Gener8tor Grant, the Ruth Arts Grant, and a Fellowship to the Wisconsin Institute of Discovery. Matthew has permanent installations on campus at the Chazen Museum in Madison, WI, at the University of Colorado Boulder, Mitchell Street Arts (MISA) and Harley Davidson in Milwaukee, WI. He has collaborated and worked for notable artists including Macarthur Fellow Mel Chin. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture and Post Studio Practice and Bachelor in Art History from the University of Colorado Boulder and his Masters of Fine Arts in Sculpture from the University of Wisconsin Madison.
