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VIGNETTES T Contrasting Sides THE ART OF MATT BAUMGARDNER AWAKENS ALL OF YOUR SENSES BY Jac Chebatoris THE ARTIST DIPS his hand into a shiny metal can labeled, with a Sharpie, "Iron Filings" and scoops out what looks like whipped butter in the color of a storm cloud. "Is that the name of the color?" I ask, and he answers, the smoke from the burning ember end of his cigarette trailing up toward his eyes, "No, it's from iron. It's pure iron, and then when I hit with the varnish, the varnish will bring the paint around." So says celebrated painter and sculptor Matt Baumgardner, who is padding around barefoot in his home studio in the lush, countrifed environs of Travelers Rest, South Carolina, where he has lived for the past seven years—hundreds of miles away from where he grew as a young artist in, where else, New York City. He slides the storm cloud mound (which I soon learn is called pigmented gypsum) around on the paper that is lying atop a piece of plywood on a paint-splattered tarp—"moving the paint," as he describes it—before quickly darting over to the wall, which is confgured like a Martha Stewart dreamscape of organization: everything in its place, and labeled. From it, he grabs a fat drywall trowel, and smooths over the iron flings frst, then applies turquoise, then white. Then a thoughtful retreat away to inspect what he's done, making good use of one of his favorite phrases, "ocular touch," which he says means "to look at something and touch it with your eyes." His is a world of ocular touch, for which his work has been praised, esteemed, exhibited, and collected. Legendary designer John Saladino and Anthony Grant, Sotheby's senior international specialist in the contemporary art Large Mud Drawing with 135 Stars, powdered pigments, golden acrylic products, gypsum, and graphite on canvas, 60" x 90", 2012. (BELOW) S OU N D S L I K E BAUMGARDNER CAN REL ATE FINISHED ARTWORK TO THE MUSIC HE WAS LISTENING TO AT THE TIME THE PIECE WAS COMPLETED. TO FIND THE NEXT EXHIBIT OR TO LEARN MORE, VISIT BAUMGARDNERART.COM department, are among his collectors. He has had over two thousand works in collections from Boston to Zurich, including such prime real estate as the East Wing of the White House and the seventy-fourth foor of the Empire State Building. Baumgardner completed his MFA in Painting at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1982 and received a National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artist Fellowship in 1993. His work includes paintings, drawing, and sculptures—most of his sculptures are of his cubes, which Baumgardner has done since 1978 and are a highly important component of his catalogue, but also of his mind space, as he says. "The viewer can rotate them to any side and they become a new experience—thus no bottom or top. Their very physical nature allows me freedom and delivery from knowing I can see only three sides at a time." This might make him sound highbrow and overly serious. That he will then quote a lyric from Prince in describing his artist's way will deliciously dissolve those thoughts. "As Prince said in 'My Name Is Prince,' 'I got two sides and they both friends.'" This explains the contrasts in Baumgardner's fbers—and also makes him one hell of an artist. He isn't overt with his infuences, but they are all around him—from the thousands of flms in Baumgardner is an observer of philosophy, of metaphysical teachers, of rock 'n' roll as much Mozart as Prince. 20 Tempus-Magazine.com . Fall 2013