Matt Sesow paintings: Official web page, new paintings
webpage of presently living self-teaching painter Matt Sesow.
SESOW.COM is updated weekly with new work and news, painting since 1994, on the web since 1996.
Feel free to interact with
Matt directly by using the contact button on the left. If you'll be visiting Washington, DC please be sure to schedule a
visit to his studio located in the Adams Morgan neighborhood.
NEW (May 2007):
(JUNE) SOLO SHOW: "Appearances", Rockland MAINE
SOLO of Sesow's work at the "Rougette Gallery": OPENING RECEPTION: Friday May 25th .. thru June 30 (340 Main stret Rockland, ME) Visit the Gallery Website here...
(thru MAY) TWO-PERSON SHOW "DOUBLE-HEADED MONSTER": APRIL 2007, Atlanta, GA
Nozoku Gallery, reception April 27 ... 200 Walker Street (matt will be at the opening reception, showing with fellow dc artist james coleman) gallery website here
MATT SESOW PAINTINGS ON VH1 VIDEO COUNTDOWN:
Matt Sesow's "Misinterpretation" was used on the february 24th edition of the VH1 top 20 video countdown show... ...click here to see the video.
SOLO SHOW: MARCH 2007, San Diego, CA
D Gallery, opening reception March 3rd. 222 Wisconsin Ave. Oceanside Ca (matt will be at the opening reception) gallery website here
NEW YORK CITY: JANUARY 12 - Feb 28 2007
Group show at van der Plas Gallery, "Take Another Look Outside", 89 South Street OPENING RECEPTION friday January 12 6-8PM, OAF weekend party Saturday January 27 8PM gallery website here
JANUARY 2007: ARTROMP #19 (DC):
19TH Annual ArtRomp show at Warehouse in DC. Shock & Awe:
"ArtRomp19 at Warehouse"
Dec 31- Jan 27
Opening Reception December 31st 7pm-2am
1021 7th Street NW
202 783 3933
www.warehousetheater.com
JANUARY-FEB 2007 ARTOMATIC (BETHESDA):
Creative Partners Gallery in Bethesda, MD. Matt Sesow was selected with five other area artists to display their work as part of Artomatic at the Creative Partners Gallery. Opening reception Friday night January 12th from 6-9 pm CLICK HERE for gallery website
JANUARY 19TH @ LEFTBANK (ADAMS MORGAN, DC):
Sesow and three other artists will be painting live at Left Bank in Adams Morgan to benefit "Cure Autism Now". Live painting will be auctioned and other Matt Sesow paintings on display available. January 19th 8pm-close
NOW THRU DECEMBER: 1995-2006 VISUAL BIO:
SESOW.COM is being updated with all press and articles from the last 12 years CLICK HERE
OCTOBER: SESOW PAINTS ON STAGE WHILE OPERA COMPANY PERFORMS "DON GIOVANNI":
SEPTEMBER 2006: "SOUL MINING", ALSO REVIEWED IN THE EXAMINER:
A two-man show with apprentice James Coleman. CLOSING RECEPTION, free, September 9th at Studio One Eight in Adams Morgan. CLICK HERE to read more
SEPTEMBER 1 2006: ATLANTA, ALCOVE GALLERY
Sesow and New York City artist Justin Kauffmann will have a show at alcove gallery. opening night september 1st. sesow will be there. CLICK HERE FOR FLiER
OUTSIDER ART IN THE HAMPTONS, AUGUST 2006:
Matt Sesow will be participating with 5 other artists in this show at Tricia's Gallery, 96 Main Street, Westhampton Beach, New York (thru sept. 4th) CLICK HERE FOR THE PRESS RELEASE
As part of the first Capital Fringe Festival, Sesow painted a mural at the Warehouse arts complex downtown. (July 21-22) CLICK HERE to see the mural
BANNERS FROM THE FRINGE July 2006:
As part of the first Capital Fringe Festival, Sesow and Dana Ellyn were asked to gather up fellow artists to do a show of paintings done on recycled DC street banners (opening july 18th) CLICK HERE to read more
ARTIST GRANT AWARD:
Matt Sesow has received the Cummings MFA Award for a second time. MORE INFO HERE
JUNE: SOLO ... WASHINGTON DC:
SOLO of Sesow's work at "Asylum" in Adams Morgan. ... Upstairs at Asylum; 2471 18th Street, NW (Now until June/July) CLICK HERE for Asylum's webpage
NEW ARTICLE/INTERVIEW:
"Local artist adds colorful emotion to the District" .... by Christina Martinez CLICK HERE TO READ IT
SHORT FILMS:
... the SHORT FILMS section of sesow.com has been updated with full versions of each Matt Sesow film. CLICK HERE TO SEE IT
REVIEW of Sesow at Hurn Museum:
... from the "Faces of Folk" exhibit in "Connect Savannah" . published Feb 2006 by Bertha Husband. CLICK HERE TO SEE IT
Days of Action, Calls for Peace .. Nine days of peace actions on the 3rd anniversary of "Shock & Awe." exhibit of Sesow war posters. (sponsered by Peace Coalition of Greater Ventura) MORE INFO BY CLICKING HERE
VISIONARY MUSEUM 'SIDE SHOW' (BALTIMORE):
... Over 100 small paintings by Matt Sesow now available at "SideShow", at the American Visionary Museum in Baltimore
DC STYLE MAGAZINE INTERVIEW:
... DC Style Magazine has an interview with Matt Sesow. January 2006. CLICK HERE TO SEE IT
"Painting from Pain" interview/article on Matt Sesow and his opinion of 'Art Brut' and 'Outsider Art'. Published in October 13th edition of Hartford Courant (Connecticut) newspaper, by Adrian Brune. READ THE INTERVIEW HERE
RECENT INTERVIEW, AUG 2005:
Interview with James Bailey about the state of art in DC, background on Matt Sesow... BY CLICKING HERE
COLLATERAL DAMAGE, PHOENIX
WON BEST EXPERIMENTAL THEATER (June 2005)... READ the press release and article about the show (TEN plays written about Sesow's painting 'collateral damage') BY CLICKING HERE
WASHINGTONIAN MAGAZINE
Review of Sesow's work included in Museum of Contemporary Art show "What's so Terrible about Being Beautiful?" CLICK HERE TO READ ARTICLE
COLLATERAL DAMAGE DVD:
You can now purchase a DVD online of all 10 plays from the "Collateral Damage" show in Phoenix... original plays written in response/inspired by Matt Sesow's 8'x9' canvas Iraq-war influenced painting (April 2005). ORDERING INFORMATION BY CLICKING HERE
ARTICLE, VA BEACH:
Read all about the Virgina Beach SOLO exhibition by Sesow BY CLICKING HERE (APRIL 2005)
"Matt Sesow's "Father of the Bride" threatens to steal the show with its irrepressible expressionistic angst. This 2001 acrylic painting on cardboard is defined by the remarkable violence of its brush strokes, which recall the kinetic force of Jack the Ripper with their razor-sharp slashes and blade-like shredding effect. These kinetic linear forms combine to create a grotesque portrait of an imposing man in a blue blazer and orange tie, dried white mounds of paint forming his monstrous teeth.
Sesow's composition is even more impressive with the knowledge that he had one hand amputated in a freak childhood accident. At the age of eight, this self-taught artist was struck by a landing airplane whose propeller severed his arm and resulted in the loss of his dominant hand."
MUSEUM PERMANENT COLLECTION:
painting by sesow, "Volunteer" In the permanent collection of the Folk Artist's Museum in Flat Rock, N.C. (the folk art foundation of NC)
Call or write/email in advance to setup a studio visit if interested (Washington, DC).
"Sesow's canvases would hardly complement floral-print furniture. But the personality behind the art is anything but dark. A polite, affable man with bright blue eyes and closely cropped blond hair, Sesow chuckles often and appears to be enjoying life. "
-- ( Molly Knight, DC Style Magazine, January/Feb. 2006)
"Matt Sesow's "Father of the Bride" threatens to steal the show with its irrepressible expressionistic angst. This 2001 acrylic painting on cardboard is defined by the remarkable violence of its brush strokes, which recall the kinetic force of Jack the Ripper with their razor-sharp slashes and blade-like shredding effect. These kinetic linear forms combine to create a grotesque portrait of an imposing man in a blue blazer and orange tie, dried white mounds of paint forming his monstrous teeth."
-- ( Allison Hersh, the Savannah Morning News, December 2005 ... Hurn Museum exhibit "Face Dances")
"While some of his images might be considered brutal or brutish in the same way as, say, Francis Bacon, they are only real life with the beauty secrets stripped away, the cover girl make-up stuffed back into society's compacts. They are the skeletons, out of the closet, with the raw meat still attached.
Sesow may very well be the most important artist working today. His paintings are explosions of color. Punk rock energy paired with the symbolism of alienation dressed in the finery of a rainbow. As he says, he is trying to create something that is funny, political and chaotic. In that quest he has been successful on a grand scale.
" -- (Ron Taylor, Demon Beach Records, November 2005)
"Matt's work still bites big holes in the canvas and the sanctified social order of the day. Only now there is a greater
confidence, with a higher level of sophistication in color and composition. ... drives ideas like nails through current events. Whatever
the theme, manages to steeer clear of illustration and drill (his) way to the inner core of fearless, almost reckless interpretation." -- (Jim Magner, Capitol Hill Rag Magazine, March 2005)
"Matt Sesow ... is a master of angular lines and jarring color." -- (J. Bowers, Baltimore City Paper, oct. 2004)
WON BEST EXPERIMENTAL THEATER (June 2005): "Collateral Damage," Cheap Theatrix: Raymond Shurtz collected a handful of antiwar plays and strung them together against a painting by Washington, D.C.,
artist Matt Sesow. Somewhat thoughtprovoking, occasionally brilliant, entirely fresh." -- (Chris Page, critic, East Valley Tribune Daily, June 2005)
"Matt Sesow's nightmarish portraits possess a voracious brutality that hits the eyes like sand, but embed in the heart with unexpected wonder" -- (Timothy Cahill, Albany New York Times Union, 2004)
"Sesow didn't have any formal art training, but his work is gaining recognition in the small but growing world of so-called visionary art. The genre -- sometimes called outsider art, art brut or contemporary folk art -- groups works by self-trained artists who deal with very personal issues, often their own disabilities...
Through his art, Sesow worked through the emotional knots created by his childhood accident....
Sesow's paintings communicate the emotional power of his healing. One of his works in the AVAM exhibit, titled "Out of Water," depicts in loose, abstracted brush strokes and bright colors a scuba diver emerging from water. On his goggles is a line with three crosses that Sesow uses to symbolize the trauma of his childhood accident.
For years after his hand was amputated Sesow wore prosthetics, but about a year after he started painting, he gained confidence and stopped wearing his artificial hand.
Sesow feels freed now that he doesn't have to try to be and look like something he isn't. ..."
-- (Cate Hescox, Reuters News, October 2004 read full interview by clicking here)
"Sesow's explosively colored and powerfuly composed expressionist paintings in this exhibition are broad brushed self-portraits with a compellingly dramatic tension
that draws in the viewer. Both 'Setting Sail' and 'Out of Water' capture on canvas and board doubling figures, expressions, and markings-- on the first-- and a powerful
head complete with a characteristic Sesow trauma scar marker on the second..."
-- (Tony Harvey... regarding Sesow paintings at 'Holy H2O' AVAM show, Intowner magazine, Washington DC, Oct. 2004)
"Every stroke (of Sesow's) is like a cannonball hitting the canvas" --(Chris Warner/Alcove Gallery, Atlanta Magazine, 2004)
"Matt Sesow, whose "Bunny Collector" could hold its own with Grosz, and whose "Hellbound III" posits a universe where Francis Bacon and Edvard Munch are the same."
-- (Las Vegas Mercury, 2003)
"The essential appeal of the outsider spirit in art is robustly exemplified by the compelling impact of a Matt Sesow painting. His finest works tend to gather
themselves to lunge at you and take root in unguarded channels of emotion"
--(New Art International, Book Art Press. 2003)
(Regarding paintings done by Sesow for the Hollywood play 'F**king Wasps' about Alfred Kinsey, by Steve Haskell) "The set consisted essentially of a blue
piano and several immense paintings by DC-based artist Matt Sesow, which were commissioned by the director for the
production. These complex, savage, allegorical portraits not only represented but actually contained the entire
psychological subtext of the play. Their vivid, unsettling presence gave the rigid agony of the performances a
context and a dignity that despite their best intentions they might not have achieved otherwise. The art was there
to say no, that despite the defenses, controls and masks, inside everyone there is a mass of turmoil and contradiction.
The paintings were an integral part of the content of the production, not just its style. The said more about the
Kinsey the man than Kinswy ever could. That is exactly what I was looking for at the LA Art show, what I look for
all the time now. For art that takes the human condition seriously, and engages with it, even at great risk to itself."
-- (Coagula Magazine, Hollywood, CA, 2003. Shana Nys Dambrot)
"Brace yourself. Maybe even toss back a stiff drink before you go. Because to encounter Matt Sesow's paintings is to enter a maelstrom.
Undiluted primary colors fly off the wall, blinding, dazzling. Frenetic lines thrash violently. And Sesow's disturbing, distorted
images needle and jab.... Viewing the current wall of Sesow's work is like eavesdropping on the artist's ongoing argument with the world.
With paint he shouts down and wrestles with his tangled personal and political issues. And we get to watch wide-eyed."
--(Laura Parsons, from 'the hook', Charlottesville, VA... regarding Sesow's 2004 show)
"Matt is a true Brutarian, a self-taught painter who, despite having his work extensively shown and written about, has little interest in
becoming part of the art network. Sesow appears unconcerned with communicating in the accepted tropes
of the professional; he defers to no recognized code, nor to the rules of
any recognized idiom. "Crude!" "Unfinished!" "Aberrant!" the boulevardier may jeer,
but it may well be that Matt's approach results in a creative range beyond the normal
compass of our responses . . .Perhaps not, nevertheless, Mr. Sesow has created a
fascinating body of work
"
--Interivew with Matt Sesow from "Brutarian" magazine, issue #28
"I suppose everybody has experienced some pain and fear in their lives. Just as paintings of pretty flowers and sunsets with horsies make us smile and feel content,
I want to paint emotionally charged intense works that cause discomfort or inspire people to challenge themselves. I had some unique physical trauma as a child
that got me started on this path... I'm a generally happy person, but I have taught myself to channel anger and intensity in art. The best musicians and painters have done it,
those are my heroes."
--(Interview with Matt Sesow, 2004) READ THE INTERVIEW, BY CLICKING HERE
Comments, requests for paintings, and galleries can send email to sesow@sesow.com (page is updated on average once a week with new works and news)
