Matt Baumgardner  Matthew Clay Baumgardner (February 5, 1955 - November 20, 2018) was an American contemporary artist and National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artist Fellowship winner whose work was featured in multiple public and private collections including the Gibbes Museum of Art and the Greenville Museum of Art in Greenville, SC. After graduating with an MFA from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1982, he was a fixture for over three decades in New York City's art scene. Since leaving New York for Travelers Rest, SC in 2006 he has been featured in numerous magazines, newspapers and online articles some of which focus on his art and others on his home and studio. Biography  Born in Columbus, Ohio, on February 5, 1955, Matt graduated from Upper Arlington High School in 1973. Some of Matt's fondest childhood memories were exploring nature while living in wooded Bernardsville, NJ. His love of nature and its four elements- fire, air, earth and water- permeated his life and art. Inspecting insects with his microscope, tending his grounds laden with flowers and edible plants, swimming in the Caribbean with his daughters or laps in the pool at his studio, lighting fireworks or a burn pile of pruned branches, and contemplating beautiful sunsets in the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains were his simple joys that inspired his work. Deeply spiritual, Matt articulated, embraced and expressed through his art the transcendent issue  ""My work imparts a transformative experience that resonates with my longings to channel universal and spiritual planes; I want to transport the spirit, to remind us all that we are perfect beings passing through a transient world. My soul craves expression through poetic and timeless art that beckons the viewer to return time and again to find renewal and fresh experiences."" Matt earned his MFA from University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in 1982, under Peter Plagens. Previously, he studied under eminent South Carolina artists Carl Blair, Emery Bopp and Darell Koons at Bob Jones University, graduating in 197-, and then taught art to grade schoolers at Bob Jones Academy until 198-. During this time in the Carolinas, Matt received purchase awards from the Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC (“Biennial Exhibition of Piedmont Painting and Sculpture”), and the Spartanburg Art Museum, and had a painting chosen by renowned New York Times art critic, Roberta Smith, for the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston for its “30th Annual GSCA Exhibition”.