Join Colorado-based intermedia artist Matt Sage for a special edition of One Painting at a Time, a program that invites close looking, open-ended dialogue, and personal interpretation. One Painting at a Time challenges us to look beyond our first impressions and spend quality time with a single painting. The program departs from the idea that Clyfford Still intended his artwork to be open to interpretation and did not title his paintings. Each program is unique, with the format and conversation determined by the speaker, who has free rein to choose a painting from the 843 in the Museum’s collection.
In this session, Sage brings his practice as a “recording artist” into dialogue with Still’s work and archive. Considering a facsimile of a corresponding watercolor copy by Patricia Still alongside the original Clyfford Still painting it references, he explores copying as a form of recording—an echo across time. Sage will discuss Clyfford Still’s PH-1078, 1951, and Patricia Still’s watercolor copy of PH-1078. Sage will provide participants with the opportunity to reflect on what it means to record, repeat, and remember—through paint, through sound, and through the unique stewardship of a collection and archive held in one place. This session invites deep attention, close comparison, active engagement, and imaginative listening as we encounter Still’s work. Expect your sound in the gallery to be recorded and played back!
The program is free with Museum admission for the public and free for CSM members; registration is required to attend in person at the Clyfford Still Museum. Registration will open soon.
About Matt Sage
Matt Sage is an intermedia artist, musician, academic, and home agriculturalist on the Colorado Front Range. Born and raised in Colorado, Sage studied poetry at Colorado State University before moving to Chicago in 2014. He attended the Art Institute of Chicago, where he studied Writing and Intermedia Arts. He taught Media Studies and media production courses in the Communication, Media, Theater Department at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago for nearly seven years. He then taught studio arts in the department of Art and Art History at Colorado State University for two years upon moving back to the Front Range in 2021.
He’s shown work and performed – both solo and in collaboration and groups – at many galleries and institutions, including The Whitney Museum, MoMA, MoMA PS1, Art Institute of Chicago, Hyde Park Art Center, and Geffen Contemporary. His musical work has been released by the acclaimed RVNG intl label, as well as on many other notable independent record labels, including Geographic North, Orange Milk, Moon Glyph, and more. He is a member of the celebrated ambient jazz quartet Fuubutsushi.
He is currently helping rehabilitate and manage a little over two acres of land on the Front Range with his family between making intermedia artworks in his pole barn studio.