Matt Connors

With influences from the worlds of interior design, literature and rock music, Matt Connors is a respected painter, whose work combines a minimalist sensibility with the procedures of abstraction. The modern critical perception of paintings, is that they are a support for a visual production. Connors rejects this approach. In his work, he has decided to reorganize colour as a performance platform. His focus is not on stylistic relevance or general conceptions about paintings as a medium. Connors has arrived at a synthesis between his influences mentioned above, and the formalism of his training. He graduated from Yale University School of Art where the aesthetic principles of Clement Greenberg were dominant. Connors art is based on the visual impact of fundamental blocks: rectangles, circles and lines, presented in their elementary context. His paintings keep the viewer's attention at a respectable distance, so that their truth can be grasped as a whole. Connors working methods incorporate wet paint techniques: he soaks the paint directly onto his canvasses, which occasionally leaves tiny spatters and dots on the surface to dry, and add texture to the piece. His works are identifiable for their unity of motion and execution and are a part of collections at the MOMA in New York. (Artist website)