In the Studio with Hudson Valley Textile Artist + Sculptor Matthew Gilbert

INSIDE+OUT Upstate NY caught up with textile artist and sculptor Matthew Gilbert for our next artist spotlight. Matthew’s unique aesthetic infuses a dark, comedic sense of humor into the depiction of abandoned worlds. Their work spans hand-punched rugs, embroidered tapestries, and set-like installations that blend medieval architecture with rural American iconography to explore themes of contemporary isolation and human impermanence.

Matthew was named a 2024 Emerging Artist Fellow by the Ann Street Gallery and won the prestigious 2026 Pocantico Prize from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Their work has been shown at the Outsider Art Fair, the Wassaic Project, and the Dorsky Museum of Art.

“In the Studio” is an ongoing series that celebrates the visionaries shaping the vibrant art scene of the Hudson Valley. This is where we take a peek into the workspaces, lives, and inner worlds of the region’s most compelling creatives. The series is produced in collaboration with Richard Hall and Mimi Young, founders of @littlebitcreates.

Let’s learn more about Matthew Gilbert and what he is up to today.  If you are in the area, Matthew’s 2026 solo exhibition titled Pretend till it Hurts, opens at Jane St. Art in Saugerties, NY this Saturday, June 27th.

INSIDE+OUT: Where are you originally from and how did you wind up in the Hudson Valley?

Matthew Gilbert: I originally grew up in Brooklyn and I moved to the Hudson Valley about four years ago for the typical reasons that most people do. I wanted to be closer to nature and have a bigger studio. As a kid, we took Metro North to see family friends upstate, so the Hudson Valley was always kind of in the vicinity. I always had the itch to leave the city. Having lived there my entire life, I could tell it wasn’t really where I wanted to live.

What inspired you to become an artist, and what was your journey?

Matthew Gilbert: I wanted to be an artist because I always loved stories. Whether that’s books, movies or songs. I took a contemporary art class and was inspired by Post-Minimal artists such as Melvin Edwards, Félix González-Torres, Eva Hesse, Lynda Benglis, and Robert Morris. These artists told stories with their materials, exploring the physical properties and historical connotations of their respective mediums. I connected to these works because they were so emotional to me, the weight of fabric, the threat of barbed wire. They referenced the body and burden of being alive without figures. Although my work has shifted away from the aesthetics of Post-Minimalism, I still explore these emotions projected onto materials without people, now primarily focusing on architectural scenes that explore human impermanence.

How do you decide which specific moment in a story to capture as a screenshot for your viewers?

Matthew Gilbert: I usually choose a moment that happens right after something, focusing on the aftermath. That way, the viewer then has to put the pieces of the puzzle together themselves and come up with the story to explain what we are looking at, whether that’s an overturned chair or a broken fence. I choose the moment after the incident because I want to highlight the consequences.

How do you determine which details to include to ensure the viewer can effectively act as an investigator with your work?

Matthew Gilbert: I try to take out too many obvious clues so that the scenes are open to interpretation. I also like to play with questioning the order of events, and also how long ago things have happened. Some details suggest that someone has just fled moments ago, while others imply decades of abandonment.

Your work simultaneously explores human, architectural, and natural regrowth timelines; how do you balance these different scales within a single captured moment?

Matthew Gilbert: Some pieces focus more on the architectural, and others more on the human. I don’t really think about balancing between the two, but rather focusing on the details that make sense for each piece. That way, the story evolves throughout my work, swaying between these different timelines.

In your series reimagining rural American landscapes with Gothic medieval architecture, what specific things were you most interested in portraying as being left behind by humanity?

Matthew Gilbert: I like to focus on the objects left behind that have a specific everyday “use”. By showing these objects as discarded, I highlight, and maybe even poke fun at, that these things we make that become trash will ultimately exist longer than our own bodies decomposing.  Thinking about our own garbage, and suggesting it will outlive us all. Exploring its life after humans are gone, it still exists. A toilet is a toilet, even if no one uhhh, yeah.

You spoke about the contrast between the decades it takes for a sidewalk to crack and the annual regrowth of grass; how does this influence your personal perspective on the time you have left?

Matthew Gilbert: It sort of has conflicting implications. On one hand, I try to appreciate these fleeting moments and be present. But on the other hand, I imagine myself as an old person looking back on my life, living my life with this false sense of retrospective vision or wisdom. It’s definitely an ego thing, as if I have any idea what I will have learned by the time I’m 90, but I really do imagine it, which makes for a rather morbid existence. I can never really feel connected to the present moment because I am always imagining how these moments will feel as memories later. I’m definitely not advocating for this kind of thinking. It’s kind of grim.

Why do you choose to pair dark, morbid themes like violence or death with soft, colorful, or cartoonish materials?

Matthew Gilbert: It lets me make fun of myself and be a little self-deprecating. The work is so melodramatic that the softness stops it from being too serious or too self-indulgent. I want to explore death with some humor, or else it’s just too dark and one-note. I like the work to have a mixed and sometimes conflicting mood, sullen but also whimsical.

How does the physical process of using a sewing machine to manipulate stitch length and tightness influence the movement of your art?

Matthew Gilbert: It helps draw focus to certain areas over others, another way for me to give clues to the viewer about the important details in the story. Denser areas will look more important as the layers of thread make it literally stick out and raised.

What are the most challenging and the most rewarding aspects of being an artist?

Matthew Gilbert: The most challenging part is all the time, alone, in the studio. I usually watch TV in the background just to hear someone else’s voice besides my own in my head. The most rewarding? I don’t really know. Those brief moments of clarity or success, when a piece finally comes together. But that’s maybe 5% of the time? I don’t really feel rewarded by making art; that doesn’t drive me to create. I guess I feel the most rewarded when I am the viewer of the art. I feel connected to other people by hearing their stories, the way they see the world. I love really long novels about a single character’s entire life. It lets me access an entirely different timeline than mine. Maybe I feel like mine alone isn’t enough – I want to feel more.

What is one question you’re constantly asked or the biggest misconception about your work?

Matthew Gilbert: I’m always asked: “Why embroidery?” Part of it is that I feel I want to make objects rather than images, which makes sense given my work’s preoccupation with left-behind objects. The embroideries are objects: rugs, tapestries, blankets, etc. I want my work to exist within our built world, not as an image on the wall. And also, there is a history of storytelling through textiles. Quilts as community storytelling, and medieval tapestries too. I am inspired by the history of stories more than by the history of “capital-A”– Art. The embroidery is closer to a storybook than the white cube gallery.

What makes living in the Hudson Valley special for you?

Matthew Gilbert: The everyday beauty. I love driving over the Hudson to the studio, watching the mountains change with the seasons. And the architecture. Newburgh is known for its Victorian architecture, and that has definitely influenced my work.

What is missing in the area that you wish we had?

Matthew Gilbert: More trees at the park on the waterfront, I think, “The People’s Park”. Best views, but no shade.

Local Love: What local business should we know about, and that you rely on to be successful?

Matthew Gilbert: The Newburgh Free Library. I go there weekly. Any computer work I need to do, I do there, overlooking the Hudson River and the Highlands through the library’s huge windows. And they have a great selection of photo reference books. I have this book of flowers that I draw from when I don’t have the energy to sew. I always have a handful of photo books in the studio that I flip through and return, of course.

Who or what inspires you personally?

Matthew Gilbert: I am really inspired by music and songwriters. Artists like Seawrows, Ethel Cain, and Andy Shauf. Songs that have a strong narrative, where the song ends in a different place than where it began. Also, these singers offer a strong visual depiction of the American landscape, both naturally and culturally speaking. Groups like Pinegrove and Wednesday write about road trips through dilapidated small towns. Broken billboards, mattresses on the side of the highway, that sorta thing. Growing up in Brooklyn, the wide-open landscape of the rest of the country was always a fantasy. After driving through a lot of it now on cross-country road trips, there’s a lot more garbage than I thought.

Tell us something about yourself that people would be surprised to know.

Matthew Gilbert: I am an over-sharer. There are very few things that people don’t know about me. I always just say that I have a twin.

What do you do for fun? What are some of your favorite ways to unwind and unplug when you are not in the studio?

Matthew Gilbert: I like to read and watch movies. And exercise. I go through like 3-year periods of an obsession with something. For a while, it was skating and then hiking. Now I go to the gym a lot. The obsession is always something solitary and something quantifiably improvable, like learning new tricks, hiking longer distances, or lifting heavier weights. I like to game-ify my exercise; I want to be able to “progress” at it.

If you could have one superpower, what would it be?

Matthew Gilbert: Flying. At least I’d save the bridge toll every day.

What is your current state of mind?

Matthew Gilbert: Burnt out. I am in the middle of installing the show and pulling all-nighters, doing last-minute adjustments to pieces I thought I finished.

Photos of artwork courtesy of the artist. Photo of Matthew by Mollie McKinley. Photo of work by Tallullah Schwartz.

Follow/Connect with Matthew Gilbert via Website | Instagram

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See more of our IN THE STUDIO WITH… Artist Series:

In the Studio with Artist Elizabeth Keithline

In the Studio with Bespoke Ceramicist R.A. Pesce

In the Studio with Experiential Artist Amanda Russo Rubman

In the Studio with Multimedia Artist David McIntyre

In the Studio With Artist Olaf Breuning: Laughter in the Dark

In the Studio with Contemporary Artist Andrew Lyght

In the Studio with Mixed Media Artist Yoko Izu

In the Studio with Abstract Artist Joel Longenecker

In the Studio with Horticulturist and Encaustic Artist Allyson Levy

In the Studio with Multidimensional Artist David Kucera

In the Studio with Contemporary Expressionist Ransome

In the Studio with Trailblazing Artist Ginnie Gardiner

In the Studio with Abstract Painter Donald Elder

In the Studio with Sculptor Iain Machell

In the Studio with Artist + Material Collaborator Ian McMahon

In the Studio with Painter + Gallery Owner Jenn Hicks

In the Studio with Multi-Modal Artist Millicent Young

In the Studio with Acclaimed Painter, Collage Artist + Educator David Hornung

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This ongoing artist series was produced in collaboration with Richard Hall and Mimi Young, founders of littlebitcreates.

Richard Hall and Mimi Young are the creative forces behind littlebitcreates. They produce a variety of projects, including in-depth artist profiles, event-specific promotional videos, and music videos. Their approach is exciting, innovative, and contemporary. In addition to their client work, Hall and Young collaborate with other creatives to create multidimensional, neo-surreal videos as part of a noncommercial venture. Littlebitcreates emerged from the extensive knowledge Hall and Young gained over 30 years of experience in photo shoots and multimedia art. They exclusively shoot all of their videos on iPhones, appreciating the distinctive aesthetic it produces and the comfort it offers their subjects in front of the camera.

Follow + Connect with littlebitcreates via Website | Vimeo | @littlebitcreates