The love Matthew Sievers has for old barns and trees is in his blood. His grandfather grew barley and his father had sheep and some cows as well as several acres of pine trees used for landscaping. Sievers helped his grandfather with irrigation and hauling grain from the silo and helped his father by digging out trees with a shovel when one of them sold.
Finding Shade, oil on panel, 30 x40"Family Pride is a classic red barn standing proud in a field despite its being a little the worse for wear. “I love bringing emotions and memories into my paintings,” he says. “I wanted this piece to show the feelings of pride in hard work and the connection I feel to these old reminders of our past. There are lots of barns around here, some of them kind of falling apart. The cool thing about barns is that they’re a testament to hard work. They’re grandpa’s legacy and no one wants to tear them down. Everyone knows whose barn it is and the guy who worked it. They’re little monuments. I love painting them because I get a sense of that.
“Light is my muse. I use light that sets each barn off as a portrait, as a character up close,” he continues. He uses contrasts to emphasize his composition, the red barn set off from the blue sky and purple hills, the sunlit door next to the shadowed view of the interior and the vegetation softening the barn’s geometric structure.
Morning Sun, oil on panel, 48 x 48"
In Morning Sun, he painted an ice-covered tree in an icy field, let the paint dry, and then began rolling, scraping and repainting with more transparent paint. His contrasts are in color, value and temperature—cold blue to the warm yellow of the sun—and in shape—the rounded leaves against his geometric application of paint. Punching strokes of the blue paint of the sky into the tree, he forces the eye to “get you into the tree and past the tree.”
Family Pride, oil on panel, 48 x 36"
Although he studied art in college, he credits his father, Gregory Sievers, with the core of his education. “In school,” he says, “the teacher thinks he has the right way to paint and he tries to instill it in you. In my one-on-one critiques with my dad, he grounded me in the fundamentals. He never wanted to push me toward what he was doing. He encouraged me to find my own voice. I’m always refreshing and re-sharpening the tools he gave me.
Valley Monument, oil on panel, 48 x 60"
“My dad used to take me plein air painting,” he continues. “One day we hiked up Table Rock Mountain with our painting packs and our provisions. When we got up in the morning, he had me paint the aspens while he went off to paint a waterfall that is a higher skill level. I was sitting there painting when sunlight came through the back of the trees. A mass of yellow leaves fell on the fresh snow. It was an absolutely spiritual experience. I always recall the emotion I felt. I want to convey that in my work.”
His most recent paintings will be shown at Blue Rain Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, opening May 29. —
Blue Rain Gallery • 544 S. Guadalupe Street • Santa Fe, NM 87501 • (505) 954-9902 • www.blueraingallery.com
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