VISUAL ARTS
BY E S T E R B A R K A I
BLUNT GRAFFIX:
SOMETHING BORROWED,
SOMETHING NEW
Using a copy machine in the Navy sparked Matt Dye’s artistic career
att Dye, aka Blunt Graffix, is showing his art
in three different places in Eugene. None is
an art gallery.
His work is on view indefinitely at
Broadway Metro and Blairalley Vintage Ar-
cade, and his test prints are on display at Epic Seconds
through Dec. 31.
Blairalley and Epic Seconds are vintage businesses.
That matches Dye’s sensibility, since his work often car-
ries an element of homage to things past. He employs
dollar bills or tax stamps from the early 1900s, for ex-
ample, as formats for his subjects: musicians, actors or
films. His interest in art began when, as a kid, he ad-
mired Stanley Mouse concert posters for ’60s bands like
The Grateful Dead.
In those days, concert posters were handmade prints.
Dye’s interest in printing was sparked in the most un-
likely of places — using a copy machine in the Navy.
A copy machine isn’t the first thing that comes to mind
thinking of the military, and it might sound strange that
a piece of office equipment helped ignite a career in the
arts. But copying machines make images. Before com-
puters a copy machine was essential to art departments,
cheaper and quicker than the copy camera that required
a darkroom to operate.
After Dye got out of the service he followed in
Mouse’s footsteps and had a career as a concert post-
er artist before transferring his skills to another of his
passions — movies. The first time I went to Broadway
Metro was years before I met Dye. It was to see a movie,
and afterward I stayed in the lobby looking at the pic-
tures on the walls. It took me a while to realize they
weren’t actual movie posters.
What tipped me off? Dye sometimes recast movies
that have already been made. At Blairalley Vintage Ar-
cade they let him do pretty much whatever he wants, he
says, and he wanted to wheatpaste a life-sized print of
Bill Murray as Han Solo on their door. The print on the
door now is the second Bill Solo because the first one
was covered with graffiti. The random lettering or tags
didn’t bother Dye at first; in fact, he thought it added to
the piece.
But when Murray was completely covered, he pasted
on the second print.
Why make images of actors in roles they never
M
played? One could answer the question with an aca-
demic dissertation on the practice of “appropriation.”
But Dye is not an academic. He refers to these imag-
es — borrowing a term from the music industry — as
“mash-ups.”
He cast his own role as a printmaker, combining his
interest in prints and popular culture, with a great deal
of success. His studio and his business, Blunt Graffix,
are located in Eugene. He has come full circle and is
making concert posters again. He exhibits and co-cu-
rates shows on a national scale: in San Francisco, New
York, Seattle and Chicago.
His print Sabotage, on display at Broadway Metro,
blends printmaking with a tribute to late Beastie Boys
member Adam Yauch, aka MCA. It was submitted in 2015
for an annual MCA Day exhibit held in Connecticut.
The print references a music video the Beastie Boys
made, directed by Spike Jonze, to promote their single
“Sabotage,” released in 1994. The video was executed
in the style of a ’70s cop show, and the print retains that
feel. The print Sabotage features MCA, centered in the
format and underscored by lyrics from the song: “I’m
gonna set it straight, this Watergate.”
Walk over to Epic Seconds, though, and you can
view art never meant for exhibition.
The test prints are just that: tests to ensure the ac-
tual prints will come out the way the artist wants them.
Some have so many layers of testing they carry more
weight than an average print. They’re heavy. The layers
include Spin Art, a method for spinning paint onto paper
or holographic foil.
Dye and his father, a retired metal fabricator, de-
signed a centrifuge especially for spinning by attaching
a steel disk to a potter’s wheel.
Benjamin Terrell of Epic Seconds chose the test
prints from Dye’s studio to exhibit. Terrell liked the
manner in which spinning and testing, none of which
was planned, nevertheless added up. The test prints are
random, colorful and complex — works of art on their
own.
A benefit to seeing Dye’s work at Broadway Metro is
you can see a great variety of it. On the downside, you
can’t get so excited about it that it makes you want to
scream and shout.
I met Dye to talk about his art there and soon after
someone at the theater asked us to lower our voices. Oh
yeah, people were trying to watch movies inside.
Talking about art in a near whisper, Dye said, “I get
bored easily.” Much of the innovation we see in his
prints — the spin created by the custom-made centri-
fuge, the use of foil paper, historic elements — were
created to avoid being bored.
About 90 percent of his prints are limited edition,
Dye says, but occasionally he’ll revisit a series. When
he does he’ll want to add something, to do it differently.
Each time he revisits a series it’s an opportunity to learn,
to make something new. ■
eugeneweekly.com • December 6, 2018
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