About Matt's Work

Short-lived moments when sunlight animates fine details in natural landscapes are my artistic inspiration. These moments become the focal points in my paintings. I bias their detail in hopes of eliciting the same emotional response from viewers as they have for me — a brief cognitive pause and refreshing breath — as I appreciate the truly awesome yet tenuous narrative of our natural environment. Each year, I feel more urgency to document these moments as I see them in tangible paint, absent the influence of digital algorithms and filters.

I use acrylics as my medium of choice given their amazing versatility. Within a single painting I’ll use acrylics like watercolors in some places while I replicate the color depth and richness of oils in others. I mostly paint on canvas because the physical texture helps emulate how the scenes themselves change as both ambient light and viewer position changes within a physical space.

Most of my subjects are captured when I’m fly fishing, hiking, or at the shore with friends and family. You may find me in knee deep in a New York Catskill stream, hiking the Deerfield River in the Vermont Green Mountains, or on the outer Cape and Islands beaches with fly rod and camera in hand. I often revisit these places in early mornings and evenings to capture images when nature tells its most dramatic narratives.

I hope you enjoy the work as much as I do creating it.

I am very grateful for my exposure to the simple gestures of Winslow Homer, the detail and atmosphere of Frederick Church’s epic landscapes, contemporary artists like Joseph McGurl, Peter Corbin and others who have captured the outdoors in ways I can only aspire to. And I’m incredibly thankful for friends, mentors, photographers, art teachers and designers who's artistic talent continues to inform my work, including Jean Locke, Billy Michels, Evelyn Reeves, John Matassa, and my great grandmother Dora Young (who originally taught me to paint).