Matt McLeod.

I am  a painter, working primarily in oils and acrylics. I love to draw,

sculpt with clay and work in mixed media. However, I always come back to

painting. Oil painting is my first love.

Art allows me to express visual discoveries. Being an artist has taught me

to look twice at things and to see the world differently. I want to show

you, the viewer, something I discovered in a scene that you probably passed

by. Painting allows me to express myself with color more than any other

medium. I try to start with an interesting composition with strong

contrasting values, then layer on transparent and opaque passages of

saturated color. My goal is to end up with a painting that is more than a

landscape, a dog, or a bowl of fruit. I want to use the subject to create an

interesting visual pattern of values and colors. My hope is that I will end

up with something that moves back and forth between realistic and abstract.

I consider myself an Impressionistic Fauvist. I try to just give an

impression of the subject matter, in that the shapes are implied

realistically  - not photo realistically, but not abstractly either. I give

my paintings an abstract quality with bright, Fauvist colors. Fauve is

French for wild beast. Fauvism is the post-Impressionist movement, led

primarily by Henri Matisse and Andre Derain, in which artists were thought

to paint with vivid color like wild beasts.  I have always been strongly

influenced by the works of Henri Matisse. I admire the way that Matisse was

able to convey how he felt - either about his subjects or just the painting

process itself - with vivid color.

I received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Southern Methodist University

in 1987 and have studied with renowned artists including Impressionist Barry

Thomas, Realists Kevin Kresse, David Bailin, Don Ginzler and Dominique

Simmons, award-winning portrait artist Henry Wingate and award-winning

Canadian landscape artist Mike Svob.

In March of 2003, I left a career in advertising to paint full-time and to

start 4artsake Art Academy, a business to teach visual arts to children and

adults. I teach after-school art lessons to children in grades K through

high school. I also teach evening adult classes and offers 3- and 5-day

workshops through 4artsake Art Academy.