MEMBERSHIP SPOTLIGHT: MATT MALONE

Membership associate Ginny DeLacey sat down with member artist Matt Malone as he installed his exhibition Hot Pink in Hillyer’s NIN9 Members’ Gallery. Matt discussed the inspiration for his series which features photographs of deflated, pink balloons strategically placed in urban sites. He explained the way the juxtaposition of a pink party balloon in an unexpected setting can transform a scene into a completely different image. Matt’s show opens December 7 and will be on view until December 21.

Ginny DeLacey: What is your background as an artist?
Matt Malone: I began making art in 2003. I studied printmaking and painting at VCU. I had originally studied business at William and Mary, but one of my professors encouraged me to do art which led me to VCU.
GD: Do you work as an artist full-time?
MM: No, I used to work at the Philip’s Collection but now I have a regular 9 to 5 job. I’ve been doing this series since 2005 and I also am working on a collaborative project called Duly Noted Painters with Kurtis Ceppetelli where we paint on the same canvas at the same time.
GD: What’s the inspiration for this show? How did you come up with the idea of using pink party balloons in urban environments?
MM: I was really influenced by the artist Andy Goldsworthy who goes into nature and finds things like colored leaves, for example, arranges them, takes a photograph and then leaves them to revert back to nature. In art school you get strange assignments, once we were given a word and had to create a project around it. My word was “celebration.” So I thought about the word for a while and thought of a party store. When I went to a party store these pink balloons immediately stood out, as they do in the photographs, so I decided to work with them. I wanted to do what Andy Goldsworthy did but in an urban environment by contrasting these balloons with their surroundings.

Most of the environments were construction sites which are always changing. They’re also hard to get into, you can’t go when people are working so you have to sneak in after hours. I would pass by these sites on a daily basis and get inspiration, but if you don’t act almost immediately the opportunity for a certain shot is gone. You have to act on impulse. Also light is key in these photographs. The play of shadows is very important. That one there [referring to Division, above] would look totally different at any other time of the day.

Construction sites are great because there are tons of weird things that you don’t see on a day-to-day basis. For example, that one with the drill bit, most people don’t see that every day. Artists are always searching for inspiration and it’s good to see new things and generate new ideas.
GD: Have you ever been caught sneaking into a construction site?
MM: I haven’t been caught by anyone who’s kicked me out. I’ve had people stop and watch what I’m doing for a little while. I try to be careful.
GD: What would you say is the over-arching theme of the series?
MM: I think one theme is the idea of using an object in a different way than is intended. When I started the project I knew that I didn’t want to blow up any of the balloons. When I shoot these images I carry around a bag of 100 pink balloons, which is a lot so I don’t always use all 100 in each image. This may sound weird, but once I arrange them each balloon begins to take on an individual personality and characteristics. They start to personify things, what they personify isn’t always clear but they absolutely take on a life of their own. It would be easy, actually it would be hard, to make each balloon look the same but I don’t really fret about that. I like the way that none of them looked the same.
GD: Are you still making works for this series?
MM: I’m still making them. The last one I took was of a power reader outside of Hillyer [above, first image]. I did it at night, which is a new thing for me that I may try to explore more. I was trying to show my process. I put my bag of balloons on the wall and shot it so it looks like my shadow is holding the bag.
GD: Was it different shooting at night?
MM: It was completely different. The light doesn’t change since it’s all artificial. I also didn’t light them myself, I just relied on the existing light. But even though the light doesn’t change you still have to balance the light and shadow.

GD: Could you explain the process of making one of these photographs?
MM: I live up in Brookland where there’s a lot of construction. So I’ll pass a site and get an idea, but it’s not fully formed until I get onto the site later on. I usually go to these sites when the sun is setting because, as most photographers will tell you, it’s the most dynamic part of the day. At midday when the sun is directly overhead the shadows and light don’t move but at sunset they are always changing.
Depending on the shot, it usually takes me 10-20 minutes to arrange the balloons. If it’s windy it takes longer because the balloons will get blown down. Then I have to anticipate when the shadows will be right and wait until the sun moves into the perfect position. I usually take four to five images at different times. Each one can be very different depending on how the sun and shadows were at that exact moment. Of course some images don’t rely on the light and shadows as much, but a lot do.
GD: Are all of these shot in DC?
MM: I started making them in Richmond. My first one was called “Holed Up” where I placed balloons in two pot holes. Then I moved to Vienna which also has tons of construction. I would see things along 66 commuting into work and stop to arrange shots.
One from along 66 features a huge six foot high graffiti of the word “Showtime” spray painted on a power reader. It was painted over two weeks later, but it’s preserved in my photographs.
You can see, especially in this image, how the balloons can also act as an indicator of scale. They show just how huge this graffiti actually was.
GD: How important is the idea of juxtaposition?
MM: Before I got started on this series, I would take a picture of just a site. Which is fine, but I needed to bring something more to it, to add something to it. In that way I use the balloons as drawing tools to highlight different passages just like you highlight different passages of text in a book. Works have to have something to catch your eye, for me that’s balloons. But it’s a fine line between being cheesy and…
GD: Artistic?
MM: Yeah. I don’t want to be cheesy.
GD: I like the way you’ve stuck with one color of balloon, it unifies all the works even though you use the balloons in such different ways.
So you’ve been doing this series since 2005?
MM: Yeah, off and on since then.
GD: Has your process or the images evolved since you started?
MM: After a while you start to run out of ways to arrange balloons and you need to take a break. I’ve made them concave, folded them over but it gets harder to stay creative. I don’t want to fall into the same patterns.
When you draw, say with charcoal for instance, you find different ways to depict line and shape, or how to direct the eye. It’s the same with the balloons, now that I know how to use them it’s easier to make the images turn out how I want them to.
Every time I move I come back to the series. I moved here from Richmond in 2007 and have moved five or six times since then. When I move to a new environment I get new inspiration.
GD: Have you ever experimented in a more natural site?
MM: No, not really. Not all of the sites are construction. One is a crate that you see every day in the street. A few are from an old gas station that was about to be torn down. I’m not really interested in experimenting in nature, it’s not what I see on a daily basis and I like the contrast of the balloons and the urban scenes.
GD: What would you like viewers to take away from this show?
MM: I hope that it helps people start to look at their daily environment differently. To make them think, oh if I had pink balloons on hand, or whatever object they like, I could put them here. It’s a challenge to be inspired by what you see every day. Finding an idea is a big part of making art, the execution is the biggest part, but the idea is very important.