Photographs by Gareth McConnell

Matthew Brannon, 36, Printmaker
“It’s not stuff I want my parents reading,” Brannon says of the raunchy text that accompanies some of his graphic-design-heavy images. (He slapped the label SLUT BEST FRIEND on a letterpress rendering of a shrimp cocktail, and SICK WHORE on a silk screen of a limp plant.) But the sly, kicky one-liners are both charming and marketable, especially since Brannon’s prints and silk screens are, in a medium-defying move, one-off. His work, says MoMA curator Christian Rattemeyer, plays with “an extremely underground and an extremely refined stratum of culture.” Following up on a widely praised show at the Whitney’s Altria location, Brannon is currently putting together pieces for Art Basel Miami.