matthew anthony batty was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, and grew up in and around Florida. their artistic practice is as diverse as the landscapes and ecologies they are inspired by. They are a transdisciplinary artist working across such mediums as video, sculpture, sound, social interventions, and image-making. matthew's work explores themes of dark ecology, the manufactured division of nature and culture through myth making in modern N. America, and environmental justice in the anthropocene/plasticene/capitalcene. Utilizing the muddiness of the in between to create new visions of coexistence and speculative ecologies of naturecultures, matthew’s work explores fragmented moments within the anthropocene, and hyperobjects like global warming in order to offer a way to navigate out and towards what Donna Harraway calls the chthulucene, an epoch where it is acknowledged that hum_n and nonhum_n are inextricably linked.

matthew anthony batty received a BFA in Studio Art at Flagler College in St. Augustine, FL and their MFA in Studio Art at Indiana University. matthew, most recently was commissioned by the New Orleans Film Festival to create an installation for the festival, which was funded in part by the Andy Warhol Foundation. batty has participated in numerous artist-in-residence programs like Hambidge Center for Creative Arts, Black Vulture Project, The Weigh of Mountains, and the Center for Rural Engagement. batty also explores curatorial work as an extension of their art practice. They have curated exhibitions at Spalding University, as well as curated experimental venues such as The Breezeway Gallery, The Fuller Projects. matthew anthony batty is currently a member of the national artist collective and network Tiger Strikes Asteroid.

artist statement

Hum_nity and nature are not separate–they never have been and never will be. We must begin to view them as one in order to move beyond the current climate crisis. Culture does not create a vacuum for hum_nity to exist outside of nature. My practice exists in the hummus of an ecological enmeshment to locate materializations of Global Warming. My explorations are speculations into dark ecologies of multispecies existence. These visions are perspectives of harsh and muddy landscapes of the American south to which I belong. Consistently searching to disentangle the obscenities of the current geological age–rooted in anthropocentric mythologies, stories, and outlooks–i create new possibilities of seeing the interconnectedness of physical, ethereal, and digital worlds with symbiotic agency.

Through my trans-disciplinary practice I explore the enmeshing of ideas, processes, and materials to reorient how hum_nity interacts, adapts to, and transforms the ecology and landscapes that surround us. By imagining and evoking processes, I emphasize relations of connection through digital projections, videos, sound, sculpture, found objects, performance, social interventions and print medias to examine how hum_nity can consciously move beyond and exist after the anthropocene, composing a more just world for multispecies kin.