Matthew Benedict

Some of the seemingly nostalgic works by Matthew Benedict (*1968 in Rockwell, Connecticut) recall illustrations from old children’s books, with pirates, saints, and Freemasons recurrently populating his paintings, photographs, embroidered pieces, and sculptures. Magical and obscure, these captivating images focus the viewer’s eye on the superficialities of the work; meaning and pictorial agendas are intended to remain a mystery. The quiet, beautiful, and yet uncanny dreamworld of his symbolic figures, and his allegorical references to literature or history, deliberately elude comprehension in the mind of the uninitiated observer. T his is the first monographto examine Benedict's entire oeuvre, as well as its references to illustrative and decorative conventions and techniques.