Matt McCormick (b. 1987)
Matt McCormick’s work operates at the intersection of cultural memory and material presence, distilling the residue of the American West into a highly personal yet broadly resonant visual language. Engaging with painting, drawing, and mixed media, McCormick’s practice navigates the tension between historic mythologies and contemporary detritus, where cowboys, highways, and Hollywood dreams dissolve into the textures of lived experience.
His work resists nostalgia, instead treating the American landscape as both a subject and a surface—one marked by erasure, reinvention, and cyclical decay. Fragments of signage, silhouettes of riders, and expanses of negative space suggest an inheritance in flux, a past that refuses to settle. Rather than reconstructing lost narratives, McCormick’s compositions act as palimpsests, where the West exists less as a fixed location and more as a shifting psychological terrain.
Informed by his time in Los Angeles and New York, McCormick’s art is as much about presence and transience as it is about identity and place. Through his practice, he locates poetry in fragmentation, exploring the American mythos not as a linear history but as a field of contradictions—unfinished, unsettled, and always in motion.
McCormick lives and works in Los Angeles and New York. His work has been exhibited in solo and group shows in New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Miami, London, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Aspen, and San Francisco.
CV
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2024
“Faith”, Gallerie Enrico Navarra, Villa Navarra, Le Muy
2023
“Motel”, Gauthier Gallery, New York
“Lost Weekend”, 2To3Fair, Los Angeles
2022
“Mustang”, Gauthier Gallery, Los Angeles
“The Wish That Was” Artist Series, Miami
“A Thousand Miles From Nowhere”, Nothing At All, Hong Kong
“Lead Me Not Into Temptation”, OMNI, London
“A Promised Dream?”, Just A Space, Paris
2021
“Gone To Heaven”, Gauthier Gallery, Los Angeles
“The Sun Shines For Those Who Look Beyond The Clouds”, Gauthier Gallery, Los Angeles
2018
“I Never Believed In Much, But I Believed In You”, Cy Fiore, New York
“The Last Cigarette”, Star Street, Hong Kong
2017
“Install II”, Levi’s House, Los Angeles
2016
Remnants Of The Rodeo, Smashbox Studios, Los Angeles
One Of These Days, AGENDA, Long Beach
Install I, Interscope Lounge, Los Angeles
2014
When I Die, Bury Me Face Down So The Whole World Can Kiss My Ass, The Good Company, New York
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2022
Loveline, Long Beach Museum Of Art, Long Beach
Beyond The Streets, Shanghai
Out Of Step, Out Of Line, Long Beach Museum Of Art, Long Beach
2021
Twisted Dream, John Wolf, Los Angeles
Miracle, Sow & Tailor, Los Angeles
BTS On Paper, South Hampton Art Center, South Hampton
WoP Avante Art, Woaw Gallery, Hong Kong
LA To Milan, F2T, Milan
2020
1988, Anthony Gallery, Chicago
2019
We Buy Gold, Good To Know.FYI, Miami
Unite Through Culture, Anthony Gallery, Chicago
Momentum, Franchise, Miami
2018
Sky Above The Clouds, Darrow Contemporary, Aspen
Matthew McCormick and Thrush Holmes, The Office, Miami
2017
A___is___A, Golborne Gallery, London
2016
Not As It Seems, Nothing As It Seems, All Day Everyday, Los Angeles
Playboys & Girls, Slow Culture, Los Angeles
Ishton’s Porch, Hou Yee Chan, Los Angeles
2015
9 Lives, Castle Fitzjohns Gallery, New York
Legends Never Die, Mi Vida, Los Angeles
Cat’s Out Of The Bag, Slow Culture, Los Angeles
Outlined, Bergamont Station, Santa Monica
Ruin Value, Astroetic Studios, Los Angeles
Text Me, Hazen Projects, New York
Selected Books And Catalogs
2024
Into The Distance Out Of The Great Wide Open Box Set. First Edition of 300. 9 x12”
2023
American Fireworks. First Edition of 250. 8.5x11”
Motel. First Edition of 500.
A Fantasy. First Edition of 100. 8.5x11”
Northern Sky. First Edition of 100. 8.5x11”
2022
Lead Me Not Into Temptation. First Edition of 500. 9x12”
Head To The Country. Second Edition of 300. 8x10”
2021
Horse. Just An Idea Publishing. First Edition of 400 Copies. 7.88”x10.24”
2020
Into The Distance. First Edition of 300 Hardcover. Second Edition of 1000 Softcover 9”x12”
2019
Head To The Country. First Edition of 75 Hardcover; 2022 Second Edition of 300 Softcover 8”x10”
2018
Stopped In For A Drink. First Edition of 75, Second Edition of 200 9.25”x6.25”
2017
The Last Cigarette. First Edition of 300 Copies, 8.5”x11”
2015
It’s Something Hard To Find. First Edition of 50 Signed Numbered Copies;
Second Edition 50 Numbered Copies; 2016 100 Copies, 8”x10”
2014
And It Feels Like. First Edition of 50. 5.5”x8.5”
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Miss Rosen, “Summoning The Spirit” Jaques Marie Mage, February 2023
Sabrina Soormally "A fading American dream..." Clash, April 2022
Sorcha Ní Cheallaigh, "Matthew McCormick – Lead Me Not Into Temptation" The Fall Mag, June 2022
"Creative Community FT. Matt McCormick" Bodega, June 2021
Geoffrey Mak, "From Tattoos To Tyler, The Creator" Highsnobiety 2021
Noelle Faulkner “Matt McCormick” Volume 2, Type 7, December 2020
Finley Jacobson, “Out West” Chuck Magazine, October 2020
Kevin Wong, “American Idols” Hypebeast Magazine, August 2019
Alex Khatchadourian, “Through Western Americana Imagery...” Amadeus, May 2019 Saadya Gellens, “Life On The Road”, Franchise, Issue 5, September 2018
Jaques Marie Mage, “The Calm Is The Storm” Journal, June 2018
Alex Maeland, “How Long Did That Take To Paint” Maekan, May 2018
Isabelle Davis, “Artist Interview: Matt McCormick” Art Of Choice, October 2017
Manfredi Gioacchini, “Rising Stars of Los Angeles,” Vogue Italia, September 2016
Bobby Kim, “The Life in a Day: Artist Matt McCormick,” The Hundreds, July 2016 Darius Khandehroo, “Studio Visit,” Jackpot Magazine, June 2016
Asato Iida, “Los Angeles Issue,” Ollie Magazine, January 2016
Sophia Alami-Nassif, “Artist Focus,” Untame Worldwide, January 2016
Yasi Salek, “Cult Talk: Matt McCormick,” Cultist, June 2015
Jaime Kay Waxman, “9 Lives Review,” Vogue Japan, May 2015
Janeau Dahl “Artist Spotlight”, Pacific Dissent, March 2015
Alexander Manzano, “DIY” The Hundreds, March 2014
EDUCATION
2008
The Art Students League of New York, New York, NY