Originally from southern California, artist Matthew Beall has a radical relationship to his material, whether as an award-winning custom painter of cars, Harleys and surfboards, or as an abstract painter exploring linguistic and geometric structures. His art, his training in applied linguistics, and his life as a world traveler have always suggested jazz improvisation’s balance between freewheeling spontaneity and disciplined focus. Matt has shown his art throughout Europe and the United States, and has lived in Brazil, the Czech Republic, Mexico, and the Netherlands. Now settled in Ulm, Germany, he runs an intercultural communication and language training company.

Statement

My art is a combination of rigorous precision and open-ended exploration. I explore core aesthetic issues through non-objective, reductive and geometric abstraction. The crux of this exploration lies primarily in examining the complex relationship among white, black and gray, with the occasional painterly brushstroke of color adding a tactile quality to otherwise smooth or "cool" abstractions.

My work explores this balance as it is played out through different paint textures and colors, particularly dark forms of varying opacity grappling with lighter ones, as well as the moments of transformation when line thickens and becomes dimensional shape, and precisely when color changes from subjective expressionism to formal minimalism. Ultimately, my work is an exploration of the evocative powers of color and form when distilled down to their essentials.

Residency

Art Students League of New York at Vytlacil Residency
July 2010

Group shows

Residency Show
Sparkill, NY
2010

Recession Art Sale
New York City, NY
2009

Brenda Taylor Gallery
New York City
2008

Brenda Taylor Gallery
New York City
2008

Solo Exhibition
Ott Cucina
Neu Ulm, Germany
2007

Art Ireland
Dublin, Ireland
2006

Group Exibition
Marziart Internationale Galerie
Hamburg Germany
2006

Solo Exhibition
University of Ulm
Germany
2005

Numerous online exhibitions.