Matthew Brandt

American, b. 1982

Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA

Using unexpected materials to develop his photos — from lake water and rocks to gummy bears and cocaine — Matthew Brandt experiments with labor-intensive photographic methods that connect the imagery within his photos to the materials used in their creation, often exploring social and environmental issues in the process. 

Brandt received his BFA from Cooper Union, New York, NY and MFA from University of California, Los Angeles, CA. His work has been the subject of institutional solo shows at the Forest Lawn Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Newark Museum, NJ; Columbus Museum of Art, OH; Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Virginia Beach, VA; and SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA. Recent group exhibitions include in the traveling exhibition Second Nature: Photography in the Age of the Anthropocene (forthcoming); New Territory: Landscape Photography Today, Denver Art Museum, CO; The Magic Medium, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; Light, Paper, Process: Reinventing Photography, Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Second Chances, Aspen Art Museum, CO; What is a Photograph?, International Center of Photography, New York, NY; and Land Marks, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. 

Brandt is a recipient of the 2024 Guggenheim Fellowship, and was shortlisted for the prestigious Prix Pictet Award in 2015. His work can be found in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; Brooklyn Museum, New York, NY; Art Gallery of South Wales, Sydney, Australia; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA; Cincinnati Art Museum, OH; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Royal Danish Library, National Museum of Photography, Copenhagen, Denmark; Denver Art Museum, CO; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; Detroit Institute of Arts, MI; and Columbus Museum of Art, OH, among others. In 2014, a monograph devoted to his work was published by Damiani.