As an American who was raised in the Evangelical Christian Grace Brethern Church, I am a "gay conversion therapy" survivor. I demand absolute truth in myself and in my work. There are holes in my memory that obscure the events experienced in gay conversion. I manifest this truth in my paintings.

This ongoing body of work, "Camouflage," is about masks; it is about duality; it is about the hidden forces and energies in our universe; it is also about fighting for oneself, finding oneself, dealing with pain and grief, healing, and finding strength and peace.

Animals, including the human kind, adopt camouflage in an attempt to protect against attack. I dealt with the feeling of being under attack before I really understood that that was, actually, what was happening. The sense of confusion and disintegration engendered by this is depicted quite literally one of the works. Other works explore the trying on of different identities in an attempt both to hide myself (from others and from myself), to fit into more welcoming subcultures, and to find out what is real in me. The work entitled "The Warrior" shows the scars of battle on the one hand, and the growing awareness and contentment of knowing who I am on the other. In the last piece in the series there is a peace, a connection with my past realities, with nature, and with the universe as a whole. Perhaps this life itself is just camouflage.

I approached these paintings in a surrealistic manner. Although of course many artists have influenced my work, in that vein I see influences of Magritte and DuChamp among others. I abstract on a bridge of shapes and forms, limiting my palette to the colors of camouflage, which blend into the environment, and draw no attention from predators or prey. Viewers might think this is 3 bodies of work - they would be right. They have a common denominator: They are a result of an American horror story enacted together in 3 parts. I have already come out; I am shedding my camouflage. I am camaflogged.

One technical thing I would like to mention is that I intend my work to be healing to the viewer, not just challenging. Drawing on my skills as a Reiki Master, I have infused healing energies into ground gemstone powders which I have incorporated into my oil paints. For example, I have incorporated actual malachite in the greens I have used throughout this series. Thus the work does have a different impact emotionally when experienced in person. I believe and intend for that to be always a feature of my work.

"Still Life:" a stupendously oxymoronic name for a genre of painting, a label we throw around casually and, typically, thoughtlessly.  Because of course no life is ever still - its lack of stillness being pretty much the definition of life. 

I see life as an ever-changing and self-renewing play of energy.   In this series, starting from a potted plant, a "mother-in-law's tongue," and working not only with a brush but with a fork attached to a branch in order to connect more automatically and intuitively with nature during the act of painting, (thus the ironic and multiple meanings suggested in the series title) I am exploring the transmutations of this energy as it reincarnates itself in various forms.  Looking at the same life from all different orientations we see completely different expressions of that energy... at some time it appears as aquatic, some time as terrestrial, some time as flora and some time as fauna, some time as unitary and some time as binary. It fights to move beyond its origin (the pot) and finally escapes it completely. It reproduces and plays with itself. It appears as pure disruption within a frozen landscape. It evokes a range of emotions, warm and cool, light and dark, the colors correspondingly ranging bright and muted, joyous and ominous.  And this is the nature of life, which is never ever still....

The attempt is to expand our perception from the mundane to the cosmic, and show a bit of the beauty as well as the surprising twists and turns that are expressed in the play of creation.

Matthew Blodgett   - "Evolution"               Smyrna Public Library      Nov-Dec 2017

While I am playing with shape, color, and texture in my work I am not only focusing on the formal elements but also working with symbols and developing a personal language. I have titled this show "Evolution" because that is a theme I have been exploring in this largely abstract work and also because this show represents artistic evolution for me on many different levels. 

Two things in particular attract me to working in an abstract format. One is that it allows me as an artist to get out of my "head" and free my own emotions and my own spirit to guide the work. What emerges is a surprise to me and teaches me about myself. The second is that viewers can allow their own emotions, thoughts, and impressions to interact with the work, and they take away messages, insights, growth or shifts in perspective that are uniquely theirs.  I believe strongly that that kind of mutual participation is what makes art important and relevant.

Many of the pieces here are mixed media. I have always incorporated collage elements into my work and have also been drawn recently to mono printing. Some of the pieces represent the working out of deep emotions on my part; some are dialogues or questions around concepts of materiality and spirituality; some are referential; others are primarily whimsy or play.  Always the work is an attempt to strike a balance between meaning - be it intellectual, emotional, or spiritual - and beauty, which is largely undefinable and transcendent..  

I'd love your feedback.

Matt Blodgett

October 2017

Utilizing my design background in experimenting with monoprinting, my goal has been to create an accessible form of fine art.  Please join me on the journey as I discover where design and art can become one through the manipulation of simple scientific techniques.  In these works I have been using jelly plate printing…it is especially fascinating to me the relationships I can develop between the first use of the plate and subsequent iterations

My work is in private collections in Los Angeles, Austin,  Atlanta, D.C., NYC, and even  Hyderabad, India.  I hope one day to see my art bringing joy throughout the world.  

I do work on special projects and commissions as well. So, please contact me to see what the options are.

My work in handmade paper frequently manifests in vivid collage.  

In July-Aug 2016 a retrospective of this work was featured at the Smyrna, GA Public Library.  

My start in art began with making and  manipulating handmade paper.  These are just a few examples.

Sculpture, Watercolor, Pastel, Oils, Cut Paper, Sketches, and works in process. 

These shots are of the floor of my East Point, GA studio,  painted in January 2016.