Matthew Sievers learned from his father that you need to understand a rule in order to break it. “He encouraged me to find my own voice, to figure out color theory and composition—the fundamentals that carry a painter through,” he says. In addition to being an accomplished artist, his father, Gregory Sievers, has served as a commissioner on the Idaho Commission on the Arts.
Sunset Kiss, oil on canvas, 24 x 18"Sievers’ knowledge of the properties of oil paint and the ways in which it has been used since its introduction in Europe in the 15th century, as well as his acute awareness of how we see, result in large luminous paintings that cause the viewer to pause and say, “I’ve been there.”
Golden Breeze, oil on panel, 40 x 30"Photography reminded us of some qualities of light, and seeing that, artists have spent generations trying to remove from their work—flares of sunlight, the focus on only one spot. In a photograph and when we see, light and dark are contrasted. If we look at a shadow, we can see the forms and colors but the sky is washed out. Conversely, when we look at the sky, the shadows become opaque.
Family Pride II, oil on panel, 48 x 48"
“I build my paintings for the way they will be seen in a home,” he says, “rather than for the bright even light of a gallery. I want people to walk into a room that may only be lit by a lamp or a window and to have the painting sing over there in the corner.”
Evening Light, for instance, is a 3-foot-square oil on panel of a sunset with a horizontal slash of white in the warm colors of the sunset. Often he will paint over a section of opaque paint with translucent and transparent glazes so that light permeates and the base color glows through the colored glazes. “I want the mind to say, ‘This is real light,’” he says.
Evening Light, oil on panel, 36 x 36"
Since, in reality, we focus only a spot in a scene with the rest being relatively out of focus, he softens the edges of objects as in his portrayal of the tree in Sunset Kiss.
“Light is joyous,” he remarks. “I’m trying to portray it in a contemporary, expressive, emotional way.”
His latest paintings will be shown at Blue Rain Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, May 27 through June 11. —
Blue Rain Gallery
544 S. Guadalupe Street • Santa Fe, NM 87501
(505) 954-9902 • www.blueraingallery.com
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