Matthew Jensen is a conceptual landscape artist based in New York City. He combines photography, collecting and rigorous explorations, in each of his works. His projects yield hundreds, sometimes thousands, of objects and images from a given location. Each collection is intended to bring forth layers of culture, history and beauty, often obscured by the ubiquitousness of the subject. Most of his site-specific works are collections derived from public landscapes and reveal how even in the most known place there exists a wealth of mystery and wonder.
A recent solo-exhibition of Jensen’s work, Searching for Something Previously Forgotten or Unknown on Governors Island, was held at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s new exhibition space on Governors Island. Landscapes from his project Nowhere In Manhattan are currently featured on billboards on East 57th Street and on Sixth Avenue at Canal Street. Last year his series The 49 States was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a selection of the series will be featured in the fall issue of the magazine 1814. Jensen is a Connecticut native (Killingly) and received his MFA from the University of Connecticut. His early projects focused intently on the post-industrial Quinnebaug and Shetucket River valleys. He had a solo show at the Windham Arts Center in Willimantic, was curated into the 2007 Radius show by the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, exhibited at the Benton Museum, and his Every Tree in Town project was given a cover story in the Hartford Current.