Matt Sellars: Supra tidal

Extended to Mat 21, 2011

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The zone of a beach that is just above of the high tide mark is called the supra tidal. During the summer of 2009, Matt Sellars spent an hour or so along the beaches of West Seattle over the course of many visits. On his walks he would pick up the debris that had washed up in the supra tidal zone, enough to fill a plywood box. When the box was full he would sit and do a drawing of the area he had been collecting in and he made a photograph documenting the collected debris. In these visits to the shoreline, Matt reflected on a variety of things including how the landscape might have looked when the native Suquamish people lived there. The human-made debris gave him insight to contemporary ways of living. Fragments of old boats caught in between rocks reminded him of maritime disasters. Beachcombing slowed Matt down enough for him to pay attention to the tides, on-coming storms, and cloud formations. Drawing on his reflections, Matt’s installation at Platform includes sculptures of clouds carved from wood, small handmade terra cotta boats, and drawings from the high tide mark, each with written details describing the nature of that day.

Matt's work has been exhibited in the Schneider Museum (Ashland, OR), the Sun Valley Center for the Arts (Sun Valley, ID), Western Gallery (Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA), the Hallie Ford Museum (Willamette University, Salem, OR), and the Boise Art Museum (Boise, ID). He has had two solo shows at Platform and his work is in the City of Seattle Portable Works Collection.