Matt Gagnon’s Light Stack sculptures are an ongoing exploration of the artist’s fascination with the transformative quality of light, and how materials and surroundings impact these changes. His totemic works incorporate oak, pine, concrete, brass, polished aluminum and painted MDF. Each layered piece offers an interaction with the central lighting source, “holding” and defining the light in a unique way.
Gagnon believes that everyone approaches a material with their own associations and biases. He suggests that individual combinations and proportions of color and material contain traces or allusions to spaces or memories. The assembled whole is fragmented and ever-changing, and our thoughts and memories are colored by the physical context in which we live.
Gagnon studied architecture at Cornell University before joining the studios of Gaetano Pesce and Frank Gehry. He has taught design at Otis College of Art, Parsons School of Constructed Environments and has been invited to speak at Savannah College of Art and Design, Woodbury School of Architecture, City College of New York and University of Central Oklahoma. He has been featured in publications such as The New York Times, Metropolis, Surface, Interior Design and Dwell. Additionally, Gagnon has been commissioned by Peter Marino (for Chanel and Louis Vuitton), MTV, The Four Seasons and Ritz Carlton hotel groups, Google and NASA’s Deep Space Network facility in Pasadena, CA.
