Matthew Brown graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2015 from East Tennessee State University and completed his MFA at the University of Georgia in 2021. His work has been exhibited internationally and featured in articles by iGNANT, It’s Nice That, Ain’t Bad Magazine, Oxford American’s Eyes on the South, HuffPost, and Documentum, among others. Brown is included in the Looking At Appalachia collection, as well as the permanent collection at East Tennessee State. 

New Developments documents a region eroded of its identity— having shifted from a reliance on agriculture to real estate and commercial developments. These developments directly alter the topography and, in turn, the culture.

What is most different about this contemporary, shifting landscape is the non-specificity and the ubiquitous characteristics that emerge — the “Anywhere USA” nature of it. Nowhere is this non-specificity manifested more clearly than in the prevalence of the homogenized, big box store — a symbol of a region and nation in transition, one which fosters a culture built on convenience and comfort through familiarity and pleasant consumer experience. Brown interprets what makes a place suitable for development, personal interaction, and communication. Those who interact in corporation-defined standardized settings unknowingly become symbols themselves, functioning as monuments of both contemporary Southern Appalachian and “Anywhere USA” culture.