Textural Delights

Matthew Bird received American Art Collector's Editor's Choice Award at the 2021 International Guild of Realism Fall Salon Online Exhibition.

Artist Matthew Bird is self-admittedly a very slow painter. It can take the greater part of a day to set up his still life compositions after curating the objects and hours more planning out the piece to determine what areas must remain white —and weeks more to complete it. But his perfectionism pays off in the end with jewel-like works that sparkle with detail and a substantiality rarely achieved in watercolor.Branzino For Two, watercolor on paper on ACM panel, 22 x 30"

“My wife often calls me a glutton for punishment,” says Bird. She is not only referring to Bird’s pursuit of painting realistically in watercolor—which is no minor feat—but for being drawn to subject matter precisely because how challenging it looks to paint.

Bird is particularly attracted to new and distinctive textures. “It’s a big thing in my still lifes,” he shares. “Sometimes I’ll build an entire painting around an interesting texture I’ve never done before.”

The olive oil dispenser in Branzino for Two is one such example. Bird was captivated by the beveled glass surface and had to attempt to capture it. The piece, an ode to his wife’s favorite meal and for which Bird won an American Art Collector editor’s choice award at the 2021 International Guild of Realism Fall Salon Online Exhibition, is a literal feast for the eyes. Magnolia Still Life, watercolor on paper on ACM panel, 22 x 30"

There is the contrast of shiny copper and smooth marble, the detail of the fish scales and droplets of water running down the leeks, and the coil of lemon peel that dangles over the platter’s edge with palpable weight.

Magnolia was inspired by the condensation on the silver julep cup. Bird was intrigued by the frosty droplets and the reflective elements, and the rest of the composition—the waxy magnolia blossoms, the crystal decanter filled with amber liquor and silver ice bucket—came later.

“There’s a lot of inherent beauty in these ordinary things especially when arranged in an artistic way,” he says.

Bird is also well known for his portraiture, and he credits one of his earliest portraits for launching his career as an artist. Ploughman’s Lunch, watercolor on paper on ACM panel, 22 x 30"

Bird worked in design and advertising for 10 years after graduating from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, before walking away to pursue his art fulltime. He and his wife had young children at the time and Bird painted them often. “There’s one painting of my first daughter that changed my career,” he says, referring to Lost in Thought, which depicts a young barefoot girl twirling her sunlit hair while, undoubtedly, lost in thought. Bird won his first award for it at the 2014 National Watercolor Society International Open Exhibition. It toured the country for a year and was ultimately purchased by a collector.

Bird learned the buyer was an oncologist who displays original art around his office, including the chemotherapy treatment rooms. At the time, Bird’s mother was being treated for breast cancer. “It was extra meaningful that someone connected with my artwork and also that it would go on to brighten the day of other people in that setting.”

Despite its challenges, Bird fell in love with watercolor for “the way the pigment works, the way the colors blend and diffuse, the transparency and the vibrancy. It’s something you can’t really get with other mediums,” he explains. “It’s kind of like stained glass, the way the light shines through the colors and bounces off the white paper.” Treasure Hunting, watercolor on paper on ACM panel, 22 x 29"Bird continues to regularly paint his daughters, now 9 and 11, and his wife, often pictured in moments of quiet reflection, unaware of an audience.

“I think there is something different between the more formal traditional type of a portrait and a figurative work where there is more going on,” he says, discussing what elevates a portrait of a specific individual to a piece with universal appeal. “I like to have a narrative in my paintings; a story that’s going on, a glimpse of something or a moment in time. If that moment is caught well, it will be appealing to collectors. Whatever it is that I’m connecting with, whatever I’m trying to express and putting my heart and soul into, that comes across. It resonates. It’s not the image of a particular person they’re responding to or connecting with, it’s something else entirely.” —