Artist-IN-RESIDENCE
May 9 – 28, 2026
Matt Bodett
Matt Bodett is a Chicago-based artist, educator, and founder of the Center for Mad Culture. His work draws on art history to challenge dominant narratives around madness, framing it as a cultural and lived identity. Through painting, writing, and public programming, he creates spaces for expression, advocacy, and community.
He has presented work at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and the Art Institute of Chicago, among other venues, and is a recipient of the Wynn Newhouse Award.
During my time at Good Hart, I’ll be working on a series of drawings based on images of Saint Matthew. I’m drawn to him in part because of the shared name. It feels like a way to sit with what a name carries and how much of a life can get wrapped up in it.
I’ll also be reading texts attributed to Pseudo-Matthew, thinking about how attribution works. Who gets to be seen as the “real” author of a story? Who is allowed to speak for themselves, and who gets spoken for?
The drawings will move between more careful studies and very simple, almost childlike marks. That shift connects to how I’ve been trying to approach my own early life, especially with the gaps in memory that come from childhood trauma.
All of this ties into my experience of madness, where identity is often named or defined by others. I’m interested in staying with something more open. Letting identity take shape through lived experience instead of being fixed in advance.
