Matthew Brannon (b. 1971, Anchorage, Alaska) has long been recognized not only for his wit and literary sensibility, but also for the precision with which he approaches his chosen mediums. He is best known for his radical approach to printmaking, which, contrary to traditional usage, frequently involves the elaborate production of unique artworks. The scope and ambition of these works has increased exponentially over the last decade, beginning with a series of large-scale unique prints borne of exhaustive research into the political and cultural ramifications of the Vietnam War. Since that time, Brannon has addressed an ever-widening circle of generational patterns as they appear in music, movies, product design, and typography, as well as in harder-to-define phenomena like collective states of mind. Throughout each of these domains, he also introduces a subtle and incisive sense of personal investment, questioning some of the broadest, overarching trends in the life of our civilization with curiosity, humor, and irreverence. Brannon confronts the messy business of narrating history, creating his own versions of “primal scenes” in the American psyche. The vocabulary and voice developed in the prints has provided the center for an expanding world of objects and narratives that also includes painting, sculpture, video, and installation. 

Matthew Brannon has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Museo Marino Marini, Florence, Italy (2013); Portikus, Frankfurt, Germany (2012); Museum M, Leuven, Belgium (2010); Whitney Museum of American Art at Altria, New York (2007); and Art Gallery of York University, Toronto (2007). His work is in the permanent collections of numerous museums, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; Denver Art Museum; DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art, Athens, Greece; and Museo MADRE, Naples, Italy. In 2019, Gregory R. Miller & Co. published Concerning Vietnam, a book dedicated to Brannon’s multi-year project investigating the Vietnam War. Brannon lives and works in New York.