Matthew Kotzin

Matthew Kotzin engages with painting/drawing, architecture/design, sculpture, new media, farming/ecology, and scholarly research, as a part of a wide ranging creative practice. Kotzin is the founder and General Manager/Creative Director of The Picnic Mountain Ranch Company. Located in Santa Barbara County, the sustainable ranch uses design-based approaches to regeneratively farm wine grapes, conduct experimental research in agricultural building, and to cultivate interdisciplinary conversation between art/design, architecture, and agriculture; and in so doing, holistically address issues of sustainability, food security, and climate change. He is also currently researching vine-culture and its relationship to the origin myth of architecture as a part of a broader inquiry into agricultural aesthetics.

Kotzin’s artwork has been exhibited at galleries and museums and is included in private collections. He has also worked for alm project, an award-winning multidisciplinary design/architecture studio, based in Los Angeles. There he was involved with projects including Shiro, a line of porcelain for Schönwald, in collaboration with Stefan Diez; and the design of the Vital Voices Global Headquarters for Women’s Leadership, in Washington DC. Kotzin received his M.Arch, with a thesis citation, and a Graduate Certificate in Building Science, from the University of Southern California School of Architecture in 2020. He also holds an MFA in Fine Art from California College of the Arts in 2014, and a BFA in Film and Television, with honors, from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2009.

Matthew Kotzin - CV