Designer
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Illustrator
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Artist
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Designer 〰️ Illustrator 〰️ Artist 〰️
Hi, I’m Mattie! I am a recent PennWest Edinboro graduate with a BFA in Graphic + Interactive Design and a minor in Illustration.
I’m passionate about branding, illustration, color, and all things handmade, and I love blending analog inspiration with digital design to create work that feels expressive, thoughtful, and human.
Featured Work
This spring I had the honor of being awarded as a finalist for the 2026 Annual Gmitter Exhibition at Bruce Gallery.
I created and curated a display titled, Embracing Muchness, which became a collection of my recycled images, artwork, designs, and childhood scraps.
My final thesis explores the relationship between creativity and emotional suffering, a connection that appears persistently across history, artistic practice, and personal experience.
While not universal, the pattern of psychological struggle among highly creative individuals raises important questions about the cost of artistic brilliance.
The engraving Melencolia I (1514) by Albrecht Dürer serves as a central framework for this discussion. The work visually encapsulates the tension between intellectual potential and emotional paralysis, a theme that continues to resonate in both historical and contemporary contexts. This investigation is also deeply personal. It is informed by the loss of my uncle, whose life and struggles reflect the very tension this thesis seeks to understand.
