Matt McMullen’s paintings deal with the here and now. With the use of figure and landscapes McMullen explores what it’s like to drift away from our current reality and get lost in our deeper selves, as the mindless quality of total involvement that comes only when the ego is quiet and there is no attachment.
In these paintings, McMullen depicts this flow with the landscape elements that circle around and through his figures. He displays how the body is overtaken, as if you are physically fading away and becoming a part of the landscape that surrounds us. Creating dream like scenes that question reality, he brings the viewer into this special place in the here and now. He takes the viewer on a journey from the physical to the non-physical, exploring different realities in the picture plane. These realities are expressed with different styles of painting working together in a harmonious way. Moving from realism, to surrealism, into abstraction, McMullen’s work shows how change happens inside, and that correlates with the landscapes that surround us. We all have the self-power to change and affect our environment.
Matt McMullen is originally from Denver, Colorado and received his BFA from the Metropolitan State University of Denver. He is currently living and working as an artist in Southern California, and graduated with his MFA from the Laguna College of Art and Design in 2018.