Matt Haffner – Reviewers Bio

Matt Haffner is a mixed-media artist whose gritty and aesthetically graphic artworks range from large-scale installations to diminutive works on paper. His urban and mythological themed works are made from combinations of humble materials including; wheat-pasted paper, cardboard, newsprint, salvaged street signs, rusted metal, and spray paint that pay homage to his roots as a street artist and to his interest in the city’s periphery. He often combines his drawings with video projections and photographs that explore ideas about multilayered vision and investigate the dynamic between the static and moving image.

Matt’s works are in a variety of public and private regional, national, and international collections. He has won countless awards and grants in support of his work, including a National Endowment for the Arts Project Award, MOCA Georgia’s prestigious Working Artist Award, and a Forward Arts Foundation Award. His works additionally, have been published in a variety of books, magazines, web pages, and periodicals.

Mr. Haffner is based in Atlanta, Georgia and is an Associate Professor of Photography and Video at Kennesaw State University.

Beth Lilly – Moderators Bio

Beth Lilly is an artist, curator and arts educator.  An exhibiting artist with work in major museum collections, the former executive director of APG and former photo editor for TV networks TNT & TBS, Lilly’s experience in the world of photography is both broad and deep. She will be a featured speaker at the Griffin Museum’s program “Chat Chat” on April 15.  Her critically acclaimed performance/interactive project “The Oracle @ WiFi” was published by Kehrer Verlag in 2012. Her work resides in the permanent collections of the High Museum, the New Mexico Museum of Art, The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, the Zuckerman Museum of art and others. A Hambidge Fellow, she also received grants from Fulton County Arts Council and Society for Photographic Education. Lilly earned an MFA in Photography from Georgia State University and an A.B.J. in Telecommunication Arts from the University of Georgia. In addition to producing her own work, she currently serves on the Board at APG, teaches creative development classes is a sustainable urban homesteader in Clarkston Georgia.