MATTHEW PORTERFIELD

— My grandfather, Earl Collins, painted airplanes in England during WWII. After, in civilian life, he painted houses, until he was hired by a Baltimore savings and loan company to supervise maintenance of their city branch. I remember him as a kind and exceptionally generous man with impeccable style. When he died in 1996, my grandmother gave me his 35mm Nikon. I don’t remember him ever taking pictures, but a box of slides I found recently are evidence that he took a lot in the years between 1959 and 1972. These photos are also evidence of an aesthetic, which, if such things can be handed down generations, I believe I inherited. Though we never discussed photography or art and he didn’t like the movies, I am haunted by the similarities between the subjects that interest us and the way we organize the frame.



Matt Porterfield was born in 1977, he lives in Baltimore and teaches in the Film & Media Studies Program at Johns Hopkins University. He has produced and directed three feature films, HAMILTON (2006), PUTTY HILL (2011) and I USED TO BE DARKER (2013). In 2012, Matt was a featured artist in the Whitney Biennial, a Creative Capital grantee, and the recipient of a Wexner Center Artists Residency. He has two scripts in development, METAL GODS and SOLLERS POINT.