About the Artist
It’s been 25 years since I had a show of some paintings at a plush restaurant near Seattle. There was a lot to be learned from that experience, not the least of which is that people who show up to a place for a meal can simply fall in love with a seemingly random painting.
I have been painting for a living for over two decades. In the mid-2000’s I took a few years away from my own painting career to interview artists from around the world for a series of over 100 short documentary films I was hired to create for galleries, curatorial associations, museums and corporate collections. That experience, to be able to sit in acclaimed working artists studios and talk intimately about their processes, motivations and skill sets was not only deeply inspiring, but also gave me insight into the actual work of creating on canvas and paper on a daily basis. The late artist William Bailey told me, “painting is like any other job, you do it everyday, especially on the days when you might be a little under the weather or just not motivated to create, those are the important times to be in the studio.”
These latest paintings are much different from what I was painting prior to my studio burning in 2014. There is something both heartbreaking about such a loss, but also invigorating to have a complete clean slate to create on. The Landscape Series is a small collection of some of the canvases I have been working on for over 8 years. All these newer paintings feel as though they are tiny intimate moments caught in a flurry of acrylic paint, oil crayon and water color flourishes.
Matt Bertles 2022
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The Landscape Series
We moved to the Berkshires almost a decade ago after our house and studio burned to the ground. This series of landscapes canvases came from sitting in our garden, listening to the birds and watching trees dance in heavy winds.
(2019) East Mountain 30” x 40” Acrylic on Canvas
“I have been working with bicycle rims as sculptural instruments for years, which has left me with an incredible amount of unused spokes. Last year I started to find random golf balls around our farm and I discovered that the right mix of spokes and balls, with some paint and accoutrements, creates some interesting possibilities. What I have really come to understand is that the golf balls are systematically designed and created for a single use, but in adding legs and other cycle related features, they magically transform into something more, something different, something a little mysterious and joyful.”
-Matt Bertles
