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Matt Kenyon’s “Supermajor” examines the dependency on fossil fuels.
When artist Matt Kenyon wanted to create a piece commenting on the burst of the housing bubble in the United States and its global ramifications, he worked and researched until he had a machine that released tiny, house-shaped clouds.
He plans to discuss this work and other projects in his lecture at 7 p.m. tonight in the Hultquist Center.
Kenyon co-founded the Studies of Work Atmosphere and Mass Production in 1999 and now runs SWAMP by himself.
His work with SWAMP is multimedia and technology-based, he said.
Kenyon began the cloud machine during a residency in Auckland, New Zealand, and he just sent it off to appear in a show in Dublin.
The artist started as a painter and printmaker, but over the last 12 years his studio process has changed greatly, he said.
“I come up with an idea, like I want to make clouds in the shape of houses, and then I spend quite a bit of time researching materials and techniques and technology that allow me to accomplish what I want,” Kenyon said.
Kenyon, a professor at the Stamps School of Art and Design at the University of Michigan, said that technological advances have changed the process behind his work and the ease with which he can accomplish his projects.
“The tools have changed in recent years and have made it possible for an individual or a small group to use processes that at any other time you would have had to have engineers and specialists,” he said.
Kenyon grew up in Louisiana, and one of his pieces, “Puddle,” corresponded with the time of the BP oil spill. Several of his family members participated in the cleanup, and Kenyon said the disaster influenced him. “Puddle” acts as a sort of companion piece to another work titled “Supermajor,” which examines dependency on fossil fuels, he said.
“I use a kind of optical trick in order to create the illusion that oil is flowing slowly in reverse from a puddle on the floor, back up into a stack of vintage oil cans,” he said.
He also plans on discussing his upcoming work.
One piece, tentatively titled “Giant Pool of Money,” comments on the declining faith people have in the world markets. He will be using a smart material whose physical properties alter at room temperature, he said.
Kenyon said his pieces are generally fueled by one factor, no matter what form they end up taking.
“Personally, the thing that drives my work is just the idea that I’m interested in something that is sort of an unbelievable spectacle,” he said.
The Chautauquan Daily 
