born 1971 Amarillo, TX
Matt Clark is an artist and Assistant Professor of Practice at UTA. He has had a creative practice for over two decades. Received BA Art History in 1995 from ASU and an MFA in 2002 from Cranbrook. His work is included in over 20 International Corporate collections and has exhibited throughout the US since 2002. He has resided in Santa Fe, Los Angeles, London, and presently, Dallas. As a passionate educator, he had focused on arts entrepreneurship and how employing entrepreneurial thinking and strategy can help students achieve their potential.

Statement

Experimentally driven, my paintings are investigations of the physical and the mechanical, the unconscious and the considered, the tamed and the wild, the macro and the micro, and the real and the imagined. The result of this delicate balancing act is declarative and celebratory paintings that synthesize color, surface, materiality, process, and discovery.
My work is the summation of stops, starts, pauses, beginnings and endings inherent in both life and a creative practice.

Organically constructed, my work reveal the history of their making. Layers of paint; scraped, spread, sanded, poured, and compressed, reveal and obscure the prior image. This action is a catalyst for my trust, faith, and determination in the creative process.

The genesis of my work lie in how place and experience, both physically and psychologically, informs us of ourselves and surroundings. My paintings serve as material record of reaction, emotion, perspective, and determination.

Metaphorically speaking, my work act both as a mirror to oneself and a lens to the world around us. They are attempts to better understand my relationships, connections, intersections, and divisions to my surroundings. In the end, the hope is create a dynamic visual experience open to a multitude of interpretations and analysis.