“I am curious about the perceptual conversation that occurs when the screen is negotiated to see the underlying image, and vice versa. In short, I am attracted to the way in which the drawn screen holds the viewer at a certain distance from the image.”

Matthew Swarts is fascinated by mark making—from human, computer, to somewhere in-between. While his previous work dealt primarily with the internet—showcasing odd internet word searches—Swarts newest series hits closer to home and engages the mark of his own hand and found graphics with an old family album. After his grandfather passed away, Swarts began making high resolution scans of doodles and patterns which he then transformed in Photoshop and overlaid over family photographs. The resulting aesthetic lattices both invite and repel the viewers, creating a dense and complex matrix through which to confront issues of memory.

Leslie K. Brown, curator, Photographic Resource Center, Boston University