Of Exceptions: Matt Bodett

Challenging us to each confront our own psychology, Matt Bodett’s solo exhibition Of Exceptions utilizes a variety of media to approach each viewer with a unique opportunity to examine their own subjectivity.

Drawing from contemporary psychiatric intake forms, baroque portraits of Napoleon, Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel paintings, and a variety of other culturally important artworks, Bodett extends our understanding of language and meaning-making to move beyond classically assumed linearity.

This complex approach to his practice, and to the artworks presented, derive from his lived experience with schizoaffective disorder (schizophrenia accompanied by a mood disorder – severe depression in Bodett’s case). This lived experience has offered Bodett a unique vantage point in a world which too often claims authority over phenomenology, psychiatry, and culture.

Offering us a chance to explore the exceptions, Bodett’s work is deeply personal, historically challenging, and poetically relevant.