Matt Cowles

Artist Bio

I am a self taught painter working almost exclusively with a palette knife to create my paintings. My art education started while very young, visiting museums and sketching whatever painting I saw in front of me and crayons and pastels. I continued working in various mediums throughout my schooling, but upon graduation from high school my artistic endeavors ceased. At the completion of college I embarked on a decade long stint in corporate America, followed by a few years of teaching within the Springfield Public Schools in Springfield, MA. Upon the birth of our daughter I became a stay at home father, and finding myself with less than traditional hours I began painting late into the night. My return to art finds me exploring still life and landscape paintings that blur the line between Expressionism and Abstraction, with a very tactile sense of texture.

Materials and Techniques: In this collection of work I am drawing upon the physicality of nature, specifically still life flowers and landscapes, and attempting to present them in an almost tactile manner. Working with thickly applied oils I scrape, reapply, and layer to create an image that captures the structures of nature in various settings and forms. While the still life paintings are composed and arranged, I tend to place less emphasis on this element and try to capture what I see as is. Utilizing only a palette knife I create gestures large and small to represent and express how I view and interpret the natural world.

Instagram : @matthewscowles