Matthew Cherry
Would you say your artistic style found you, or you found it? Its been surfacing for years released by my own interests, encouraged by some, provoked by others. Sometimes this occurs one bubble at a time…sometimes in large gaseous urps with great resonance. For those who have come before me, during my “tenure”, or who are yet to make their impact on my life…I thank you for your influences. Art is eternal and allows us to have a dialogue one with another in this life and beyond.
Do you feel you fit into any specific movement or style? No, not really. If I have to define myself it would be something like this; I am a representational painter that employs traditional and abstract applications and processes with contemporary interests in how I make marks and construct my paintings. I do not approach my work with an academic approach in rendering, yet I will occasionally use cross-hatching, planar constructions or stippling with colors to build a surface and convey form. In fact, every time I paint, I have to solve the painting in new ways. Sometimes it is contrary to realistic painting’s rules of application. I have straddled the world of realism/ representation, expressionism, and abstraction but always using the figure for content. Representational artists often draw too rigid a line of what is good representation and what is “selling your soul” to contemporary devils…and “contemporary” artists are too quick to judge representational painting as traditional, academic and/or passe’.
I like to swim in these waters, between platforms. I am noticing that more and more artists enjoy this place as well.
Trends and fads come and go. The minute you try to build a platform you challenge the next person to knock you off. I don’t believe art comes from this place. Or at least I don’t want to play in that sandbox. I believe the world attempts to label and catalog and box in artists so as to categorize and arrive to a judgment and a market. This hierarchical way of thinking or grouping is really outmoded (at least in my ideal world). Interdisciplinary thinking should move us beyond just using a variety mediums and allow us to traverse modes, styles, genres and cultures instead of bobbing around on a single platform. I believe in encircling myself with talented people and interesting and diverse voices. I feed my visual appetite through abstract expressionists as much as I do figurative art and/or representational painting.
Who are your biggest creative influences?
Egon Schiele: because he gave me permission to dig deeper than flesh. Alice Neel: because she stuck to her guns like a bad-assed mama and proved that the figure/portrait was as valid as the color-slinging abstract expressionists. Joan Mitchell: well…because she can sling color better than all of the other color-slingers. Lucian Freud: because of his unflinching, ever-scrutinizing, always honest, and often cruel observation… and tough love. Chaim Soutine: because his slurry of colors are dramatic and emphatic and give me an appetite while quenching my thirst. AND
Each and every one of my kids when they were between the ages of 4 and 12.
As an artist, how would you define success? Being able to do that which you were born to do while still juggling all that life throws your way. It is not monetary, it is not fame, it is not public attention. I succeed or fail every day in my studio, at work, with my family, and friends of my own accord and through my own actions. Someone else can’t determine that for me. If I can manage to inspire, mentor, raise a curious bone, inform, create dialogue and critical inquiry while still having beautiful people in my life that love me, sustain me…and I them…I think that is pretty successful. And if I can do all of this and be satisfied with myself and a job well done…my soul will need nothing more.
Are family members and friends always trying to hit you up for free art? Yes…those cheap bastards! At least offer to purchase the paint and canvas :)
www.poetsandartists.com
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