Hey there. Matt here.

I started painting in the basement of a little bungalow in Candler Park back in 2017. It quickly consumed most of my free time and all of our free space.

A move to Castleberry Hill in 2020 eliminated the basement. I found a new studio space near Oakland Cemetery in 2022 that allowed me to start doing larger work.

I primarily create with acrylics, occasionally integrating charcoal, sprays and other markings.

Everything is nonrepresentational and nonfigurative: paintings without purpose.

I could try to write a more elaborate artist statement about my past and my inspirations but it’s pretty simple.

I would draw flowers at Duke Gardens when I was a kid but I quit. My dad would draw birds as a young adult - especially pelicans and seagulls - but he also quit. It was around the time that a seagull shit on him, or so he said.

The first painting that I can recall making me smile is Frank Stella’s Raqqa II hanging at the North Carolina Museum of Art. It was on one of those school field trips, and I still get that awesome field trip feeling whenever I go back there.

I consumed art but didn’t produce any for probably twenty years. Then it just happened again one day in 2017.

Other artists that I really dig: Ian Rayer-Smith, Spencer Herr, Eamon Ore-Giron, Kevin Chambers, Xiyao Wang, and John Felix Arnold III.

All titles of my works come from the words of James Tate.

When I’m not painting, I’m helping cities and nonprofits figure things out.

That’s about it.

*shaka sign*