greely myatt
Greely Myatt was born and educated in Mississippi. He currently lives and works in Memphis, Tennessee, where he is Professor of Art at The University of Memphis. His sculptures and installations have been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions across the United States, Europe and Japan. He has received grants and fellowships from the Tennessee Arts Commission, The University of Memphis, The University of Georgia, Alternate Roots, Atlanta, and received the Mississippi Arts and Letters Visual Arts Award in 1994.
Myatt was an exchange artist to Israel in 1998. In 2009, his work, from twenty years of living and working in Memphis, was exhibited across the city in nine separate venues. In 2011, he was a visiting artist at Island Press at Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis. His work has been reviewed in Art Papers, Number Magazine, Art in America, ArtNews, Sculpture Magazine, American Quilter, and in online versions of ArtForum and Juxtapoz Magazine.
As an artist, Myatt wants you to care about something as much as he cares. To do that he makes work that is at the same time familiar, and a bit strange – mysterious and, hopes, poetic. Through the selection of materials, treatment of form, use of subject matter and the method of presentation, he strives to make the work accessible on numerous levels. He remains conscious of how his work rubs up to art across time and how it is informed by that history. The sculptural objects and installations he has produced refer to topics as varied as High Modernism, topical issues, the landscape – both physical and cultural – as well as music, jokes and cartoons. Myatt has consistently attempted to combine art historical references with vernacular influences. As a native of the rural south, he has a tremendous respect for work that is made by the hand and guided by the heart and eye. But, he also understands the importance of the mind in his process. To state his approach to the making of art in the simplest and most direct manner, Myatt uses these – the hand, the eye, the heart and the mind.