ROB MATTHEWS Representation (3) Website CV
Nashville, TN | Painting, Mixed Media, Drawing
Bio:
Rob Matthews was born in North Carolina and raised in Mississippi and Tennessee. Matthews received his B.F.A. from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and his M.F.A. from the Virginia Commonwealth University. He worked in Philadelphia for 14 years before returning to Tennessee in 2013.
In addition to multiple solo exhibitions at various galleries, Matthews also had solo exhibitions at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA; and Sarah Moody Gallery, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa as well as inclusion in shows at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC and the Arkansas Art Center in Little Rock, AR.
Upcoming solo shows include Lipscomb University and David Lusk Gallery, both in Nashville, TN.
His work is held in the public collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and the de Young Museum in San Francisco.
In 2011, Matthews was a resident at the Ucross Foundation near Sheridan, Wyoming.
Matthews received the Pew Fellowship in 2009. Prior to that he received Pennsylvania Council on the Arts fellowships in 2004 and 2008.
Statement:
"I think there are certain things you can say about Southern artists and that is their love of the land, their commitment to the past, their susceptibility to myth but the main thing I think about us Southerners is we're willing to experiment with dosages of romance that would be fatal to any other postmodern artist."- Sally Mann
The simplest explanation that I give about my work is that only make art about things that I consider more important than art. In theory, as an artist, that is a high bar. Large issues loom above art in terms of priority and the incidentals and the ironic posturing of life reside below. There is a lens of faith that shapes what I am drawn to and how it is created. Beyond that, my forms of expression are deliberate, refined to a degree and “stoic” (or so I have been told). Because this is the measurement of what my work is “about”, themes change frequently. I frequently address mortality, human frailty and the disorienting progression of time.
