Matt Hoyt: One Another

About

Matt Hoyt’s signature groupings of sculptures speak to the intimacy of objects—how material can become charged when it is held, rubbed, or placed in proximity to the body over a period of time. Hoyt fashions his small sculptures over long durations, shaping and reshaping them to achieve subtle variations in contour, texture, and patina. The newly created pieces on view are scaled in relationship to the human hand, foregrounding the relationship to both the body of the artist and viewer. Meant for close encounter, the commissioned installation is intended for one audience member at a time.

Hoyt’s sculptures recall forms such as rocks, shells, bone, and driftwood, and his subtle use of color calls up associations like rust, skin, and the enamel of teeth. The boundary between what is pulled from the landscape and what is industrially produced collapses. Epoxy, polyurethane, wood fill, and other utilitarian materials meant for plumbing or underwater boat repair are denatured into poetic, otherworldly gestures. Seashore detritus, ceramic shards from an excavation, a tool with an unknown function: each object hints at the familiar yet they remain uncannily elusive. Hoyt’s pieces resist categorization, oscillating between what is recognizable and unrecognizable, imagined and literal, intuitive and calculated.

There is a diaristic seriality to Hoyt’s presentations—forms emerge and re-emerge, like a meandering thought process made tangible. Items are repeated, elaborated, halved, completed, turned-over. Space is folded, wrapped, and bisected; revealing internal layers of stratification. He combines and recombines carefully selected compositions on handmade shelf supports—the arranged groupings carry as much significance as the discrete pieces that comprise them. Hoyt’s practice attempts to speak to the space between thinking and doing—how practice and repetition can harden into form; how abstractions such as illusion and memory can galvanize into physical presence.