About Matt Eich
Fine art photographer Matt Eich is a storyteller. His subject: the American condition. He has been examining this on a macro and micro scale, traveling and photographing his own family. Whomever is on the other side of the lens, Eich's connections are intimate. Their gruffness makes them honest and palpable. They tug on familiarity. To see this work is to become implicated in its story. His are the stories of all of us.
New Work by Matt Eich
This selection of photographs by Matt Eich draws on several long-form bodies of work with the intent to foreshadow upcoming projects and directions. Images here draw from evolving and unreleased projects and recent publications and exhibitions. Say Hello to Everybody, Ok?, Grace Notes, and Bird Song Over Black Water. Far from inclusive, this set of photographs attempts to shed light on the artist’s range and shift in emotional tenor.
Matt Eich’s ongoing projects draw inspiration from poetry and song; they hold hope and anxiety for a future that feels frozen between enlightenment and calamity. Like holding your breath, it can only be done so long. The artist’s impulse towards moment leads the work from one image to the next. Dark, mysterious, moody - these works are subtle and emotional. Charged with anticipation. Beautiful and painterly, they could move with us in any direction. Are we now creating a future we wish to occupy, or merely passing through time and space?
Explore additional recent works by Matt Eich included in a 2020 Gallery exhibition Small Beginnings and Sunlight, Shadow, and a Rainbow, which debuted at The Cleveland Museum of Art in 2022 as part of the FRONT Triennial.
I Love You, I'm Leaving by Matt Eich
2015 - 2018
Matt Eich’s I Love You, I’m Leaving is a meditation on familial bonds, longing, and memory. The photographic series borrows from personal experience and the visual language of the everyday. Matt Eich’s vernacular style images have an immediacy and harmony with our own lives. In this work, Matt Eich creates a fictional account that mirrors reality. Eich made this work during a time of personal domestic unease; he photographed as his parents separated, and his family moved to a new city.
The Invisible Yoke : Photographs by Matt Eich
Four volumes fall under an overarching body of work The Invisible Yoke: Carry Me Ohio, Sin & Salvation in Baptist Town, The Seven Cities, and We, the Free. This oeuvre encompasses a nearly two-decade study of the American Condition, explored by the artist since he was an undergraduate in Ohio. With foresight and instinct, Eich has grown into the project he began as a young man, before he was married and had children. Eich’s work continues to carry an interest in the wide-view and the micro-focus; his artistic practice follows major themes and dramas in American culture alongside his own interpersonal dynamics.
Carry Me Ohio exhibited at the gallery in 2016 and Sin & Salvation in Baptist Town in 2018; the latter was reviewed by Leah Ollman for Photograph Magazine. Eich’s projects are the result of extended studies. Each of these chapters have become limited-run monographs published with Swiss publisher Sturm & Drang.
The Invisible Yoke : vol. IV : We, the Free by Matt Eich
released 2024
The Invisible Yoke : vol. III : The Seven Cities by Matt Eich
released 2020
The Invisible Yoke : vol. II : Sin & Salvation in Baptist Town by Matt Eich
released 2018
The Invisible Yoke : vol. I : Carry Me Ohio by Matt Eich
released 2016
Artist Matt Eich holds an MFA in Photography from Hartford Art School’s International Program, and a BS from Ohio University. The internationally recognized photographer accepts commissions to support his personal work and young family; some projects have become impetus that seed deeper views and longer studies, including Carry Me Ohio and Sin and Salvation in Baptist Town. When Eich hones in on a project, he dedicates years to it, returning again and again to the communities he documents until he becomes part of them himself. He has received grant support from such notable sources as The Alexia Foundation, the Aaron Siskind Foundation, NPPA, National Geographic Magazine, and two Getty Images Grants. His work is in the permanent collections of The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, The Portland Art Museum, Light Work, and the The New York Public Library, among others.
