Matt Brackett, Artist - Matt Brackett

The Wilderness

This group of figure-based paintings encompasses narrative images that I have made over many of the past few years. I see the paintings as chapters in an uncanny story that resembles our reality, but departs from it in ways that prompt a double take. The figures, often resembling myself or friends and family, are frozen in states of strain, anticipation, or labor, and are set in richly-toned natural landscapes. We live in unordered, emotional times, confounded by attacks on truth, institutions and morals. Can we identify with these figures in the task that art attempts: to illuminate the obscure spaces of our otherwise challenged perceptions? We lift against the load or stray in loneliness, and we stand in metaphorical nakedness before each other and the wilderness at hand.

Hill of Beans

48"h x 57"w. oil on canvas on aluminum panel. ©Matt Brackett. collection of the artist

detail of Hill of Beans

The Prayer Under the Tongue

42"h x 68"w. oil on canvas on aluminum panel. ©Matt Brackett. collection of the artist

detail of The Prayer Under the Tongue

Close Reading

36"h x 36"w. oil on panel. © Matt Brackett. collection of the artist

The Wilderness

32"h x 50"w, oil on canvas. ©Matt Brackett. collection of the artist

Atlas

40"h x 48"w. oil on aluminum panel. ©Matt Brackett. private collection

Moonstone

46"h x 34 1/2"w. oil on linen on aluminum panel. ©Matt Brackett. private collection

Treasured Vessel

18"h x 24"w. oil on linen on panel. ©Matt Brackett. collection of the artist

Union

18"h x 24"w. oil on panel. ©Matt Brackett. private collection

All the Gifts

40"h x 30"w. oil on aluminum panel. ©Matt Brackett. collection of the artist

Easter

24"h x 36"w. oil on panel. ©Matt Brackett. collection of the artist

The Torch of Autumn

30"h x 20"w. oil on linen on aluminum panel. © Matt Brackett. private collection

Color study for 'Patria'

8"h x 10"w. oil on board. @Matt Brackett. collection of the artist

color study for 'The Wilderness'

5 3/4"h x 9 1/2"w. oil on board. ©Matt Brackett. collection of the artist

Color study for 'Mud Language'

5 1/2"h x 9 3/4"w. oil on board. ©Matt Brackett. collection of the artist

Color study for 'Hill of Beans'

7 1/4"h x 8 3/4"w. oil on museum board. ©Matt Brackett. collection of the artist

Untitled color study

6 3/4"h x 8 3/4"w. acrylic on board. ©Matt Brackett. collection of the artist

Untitled color study

7 1/8"h x 7 7/8"w. oil on board. ©Matt Brackett. collection of the artist

One Can Imagine

The turmoil of the last few years have made me take a hard look at my country. Who are we, really? Where have we been led? It seems increasingly that colleagues, neighbors, and family members reveal themselves to be diametrically opposed not just on traditional political policy issues, but disturbingly on questions of core morals and even reality.

In the context of the recent crises of impeachment, racial tension, and pandemic, I wanted somehow to reach out regarding these tragedies through painting, and I wanted to search for answers among faces of imagined fellow citizens. Instead of real people however, I was interested to use an independent web-based algorithm that generates photorealistic faces of people that look lifelike, but in fact don't exist. I painted them nude and in bust-form, and elected to coalesce their skin tones into a family of dark blue grays.

Now, knowing that these are not real people, I'm truly sensitive in how I interpret them as people, and that I bring much more of myself and my history to that conclusion than any information from them. If traditional portraiture reveals the soul of the sitter, I found that perhaps these portraits instead reveal the soul of the viewer. Before these paintings, we have a chance to reflect on what else we perceive as real or true. Have we been made to see each other as unknowable, even alien? What is the true nature of the information we absorb to make assumptions about each other and our realities? Maybe in the end the eyes are the key here, they are universally bright in channeling a certainty that we are all intertwined and interbalanced.

America has always struggled to live up to its ideals - so much so, that it is this very struggle that defines America, and not the founding principles. I ask myself it we will narrow our rifts by siding with truth over fanaticism, with compassion over fear. Will we change our country by beginning with ourselves? One can imagine.

One Can Imagine #26

One Can Imagine #14

Detail of One Can Imagine #14

oil on canvas on panel

One Can Imagine - partial installation view

One Can Imagine #19

One Can Imagine #20

One Can Imagine #22

One Can Imagine #18

One Can Imagine #25

One Can Imagine #16

One Can Imagine #17

One Can Imagine #23

One Can Imagine #24

One Can Imagine #21

One Can Imagine #13

One Can Imagine #5

Detail of One Can Imagine #5

One Can Imagine #10

One Can Imagine #7

One Can Imagine #8

One Can Imagine #9

One Can Imagine #12

One Can Imagine #11

One Can Imagine #2

One Can Imagine #4

One Can Imagine #3

Bitter Chill

This body of work was sparked by my despair in the outcome of 2016's presidential election, when over the following winter of 2017, I found myself drawn outside by New England's late winter storms. While wandering out in the wild areas of woods and water, my worry for the country resonated with the occluded and frozen wilderness. I felt that the election marked a parallel chilling of American morals.

Following those adventures, our family took a trip to Washington D.C. in the early spring where I was struck by the messages of freedom and justice honored in stone at the city's monuments and memorials. It seemed to me they stood in stark contrast to the messages coming from the new administration. Returning home, I felt moved to research more of these voices of our nation's character, and to juxtapose hand-lettered renditions of their quotations with landscape paintings depicting some of the winter scenes I remembered. In addition to words of the original framers of the government, I felt it was important also to draw upon a more diverse field of notable women and people of color who helped re-frame the country in progressive directions.

After many experiments in implementation, I conceived the viewer's experience of the series to begin quietly, as they first noticed the winter scenes. But I hoped the subtle presence of the text would draw them close, where they would be moved to reflect upon the quotations in conjunction with the emptiness and chill of the paintings.

Now seen in the context of a historic impeachment, this painting series urges viewers to reflect upon the responsibility and trust given to our elected representatives, and also the power of the collective moral will wielded by the citizens who elected them. While perhaps barely discernible through the storm, I hope the words of these leaders will point the way.

Bitter Chill (It is an affront to truth to treat falsehood with complaisance. - Thomas Paine, 1794)

16 3/8"h x 21 5/8"w. oil on linen on panel, hand-lettered ink on frame. © Matt Brackett 2017. collection of the artist

Bitter Chill (I had crossed the line... I was free; but there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom, I was a stranger in a strange land. - Harriet Tubman, 1887)

16 3/8"h x 21 5/8"w. oil on linen on panel, hand-lettered ink on frame. © Matt Brackett 2017. collection of the artist

Bitter Chill (No man who is corrupt, no man who condones corruption in others, can possibly do his duty by the community. - Theodore Roosevelt, 1900)

16 3/8"h x 21 5/8"w. oil on linen on panel, hand-lettered ink on frame. © Matt Brackett 2018. collection of the artist

Bitter Chill (It may be that some little root of the sacred tree still lives. Nourish it then, that it may leaf and bloom and fill with singing birds. - Black Elk, 1932)

16 3/8"h x 21 5/8"w. oil on linen on panel, hand-lettered ink on frame. © Matt Brackett 2017. collection of the artist

Detail of Bitter Chill (We need the storm...)

oil on linen on panel, hand-lettered ink on frame.

Partial installation view, Bitter Chill

oil on linen on panel, hand-lettered ink on frame

Partial installation view, Bitter Chill

oil on linen on panel, hand-lettered ink on frame

Detail of Bitter Chill (Government is instituted for the common good... and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any man, family, or class of men. - John Adams, 1780)

16 3/8"h x 21 5/8"w. oil on linen on panel, hand-lettered ink on frame. © Matt Brackett 2017. collection of the artist

Detail of Bitter Chill (We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused. - Frederick Douglass, 1852)

16 3/8"h x 21 5/8"w. oil on linen on panel, hand-lettered ink on frame. © Matt Brackett 2018. collection of the artist

Detail of Bitter Chill (Slavery is dead, but the spirit which animated it still lives. - Frances Harper, 1892)

16 3/8"h x 21 5/8"w. oil on linen on panel, hand-lettered ink on frame. © Matt Brackett 2017. collection of the artist

Detail of Bitter Chill (Everybody needs beauty as well as bread. - John Muir, 1912)

21"h x 28 1/4"w. oil on linen on panel, hand-lettered ink on frame. © Matt Brackett 2017. collection of the artist

Detail of Bitter Chill (Look at me! Look at my arm! I have plowed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? - Sojourner Truth, 1851)

16 3/8"h x 21 5/8"w. oil on linen on panel, hand-lettered ink on frame. © Matt Brackett 2017. collection of the artist

Detail of Bitter Chill (We do not expect our path will be strewn with the flowers of popular applause, but over the thorns of bigotry and prejudice will be our way. - Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 1848)

16 3/8"h x 21 5/8"w. oil on linen on panel, hand-lettered ink on frame. © MattBrackett 2017. Private collection

Detail of Bitter Chill (Each of us inevitable; each of us limitless - each of us with his or her right upon the earth. - Walt Whitman, 1855)

16 3/8"h x 21 5/8"w. oil on linen on panel, hand-lettered ink on frame. © Matt Brackett 2017. private collection

Detail of Bitter Chill (Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters. - Benjamin Franklin, 1787)

21"h x 28 1/4"w. oil on linen on panel, hand-lettered ink on frame. © Matt Brackett 2018. collection of the artist

Detail of Bitter Chill (Everyone who comes into the world should do something to repair its moral desolation, and to restore its pristine loveliness. - William Lloyd Garrison, 1830)

16 3/8"h x 21 5/8"w. oil on linen on panel, hand-lettered ink on frame. © Matt Brackett 2017. collection of the artist

Detail of Bitter Chill (No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit. - Helen Keller, 1903)

21"h x 28 1/4"w. oil on linen on panel, hand-lettered ink on frame. © Matt Brackett 2017. private collection

Detail of Bitter Chill (I, too, am America. - Langston Hughes, 1926)

16 3/8"h x 21 5/8"w. oil on linen on panel, hand-lettered ink on frame. © Matt Brackett 2018. collection of the artist

Detail of Bitter Chill (Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not. - Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1841)

16 3/8"h x 21 5/8"w. oil on linen on panel, hand-lettered ink on frame. © Matt Brackett 2018. collection of the artist

Detail of Bitter Chill (I want it said of me by those who knew me best that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow. - Abraham Lincoln, 1865)

16 3/8"h x 21 5/8"w. oil on linen on panel, hand-lettered ink on frame. © Matt Brackett 2017. collection of the artist

Detail of Bitter Chill (Look at me. I am poor and naked, but I am the Chief of the Nation. We do not want riches... we want to have love and peace. - Red Cloud, 1870)

16 3/8"h x 21 5/8"w. oil on linen on panel, hand-lettered ink on frame. © Matt Brackett 2017. collection of the artist

Detail of Bitter Chill (If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion... - Abigail Adams, 1776)

21"h x 28 1/4"w. oil on linen on panel, hand-lettered ink on frame. © Matt Brackett 2018. collection of the artist

Detail of Bitter Chill (The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class - it is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of humanity. - Anna J. Cooper, 1892)

16 3/8"h x 21 5/8"w. oil on linen on panel, hand-lettered ink on frame. © Matt Brackett 2018. collection of the artist

Detail of Bitter Chill (Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant? - Henry David Thoreau, 1854)

16 3/8"h x 21 5/8"w. oil on linen on panel, hand-lettered ink on frame. © Matt Brackett 2018. private collection.

Detail of Bitter Chill (Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. - James Madison, 1822)

16 3/8"h x 21 5/8"w. oil on linen on panel, hand-lettered ink on frame. © Matt Brackett 2018. collection of the artist.

Detail of Bitter Chill (Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again. - William Cullen Bryant, 1839)

16 3/8"h x 21 5/8"w. oil on linen on panel, hand-lettered ink on frame. © Matt Brackett 2019. Private collection

Detail of Bitter Chill (If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. - Louis Brandeis, 1928)

16 3/8"h x 21 5/8"w. oil on linen on panel, hand-lettered ink on frame. © Matt Brackett 2019. collection of the artist.

Detail of Bitter Chill (Wherever, in any country the whole people feel that the happiness of all is dependent upon the happiness of the weakest, there freedom exists. - Booker T. Washington, 1909)

21"h x 28 1/4"w. oil on linen on panel, hand-lettered ink on frame. © Matt Brackett 2019. collection of the artist

Detail of Bitter Chill (Wherever, in any country...)

oil on linen on panel

Dark Animal

This body of work tells a complicated story, one that developed over a period of a dark personal and national mood. It began with light, the birth of my first daughter in 2008, and the successful conclusion of a six-year body of figurative oil paintings that investigated family attachment and loss surrounding a coastal, ancestral home.

But as the world felt the tremors of economic uncertainty, I too felt a looming disquiet as I watched the division of myself into artist and parent. As I willingly took on extra childcare responsibilities between myself and my salaried wife, I felt shame when I regretted the compression of my creative time. And while I embraced being lucky enough to be closely entwined in my beautiful daughter’s life, I couldn’t ignore the signs in my sketchbooks.

I have long used stream-of-consciousness sketching and image manipulation to provide the content of many of my paintings. As I was re-immersed in the children’s stories shared with my daughter, I began to absorb their metaphorical depictions of animals. But I found myself struggling to accept the ominous images that bubbled up, and resisted many of them from coming forth.

Then in 2011, a serious cancer diagnosis brought me focus and humility, and I gained perspective on the messages my own paintings were telling me. Doubt can be unhinging, but I was reminded that once examined, doubt can also yield enlightenment. It was as tools in this pursuit that my paintings proved useful, as they have in the past. I had generated a potential narrative in them like a machine stores potential energy, and I found that with that power source I could map and remap my own interpretations of the memories or emotions that brought them into being.

The animals in my paintings predominantly inhabit the coastal landscape surrounding the lost family house of the previous series, where I still find beauty and solace. It would be a gift if the wonder and menace in the paintings urge others to find their own meaning too, and we may find the darkness was like the passage of a cloud’s shadow, leaving us once again in sunlight.

Faith Transit II

Infinite Whole

detail of Infinite Whole

Echo

The Familiars

detail of The Familiars

The Keeping Crab

Untitled (falling cat)

Faith Transit

When the Wind is Blowing in the East

Untitled

Mnemonic

The Shallowers

Sink and Swim I

Sink and Swim II

New Waters

Jupiter

detail of Jupiter

Sea Willow

Temple Thieves

Untitled

Threshold

For many years prior to this body of work, I had painted about an old family house, a gathering place for four generations. The paintings in Threshold explore how its wrenching loss changed my conceptions of memory, belonging and my own inheritance of adulthood.

As a result of the house’s sale, the paintings’ settings became unmoored and drifted outdoors to linger in the surrounding coastal landscape. I found that as my wife and I celebrated the arrival of our first child, I visualized scenes that spoke of new wonder and possibility, while others still looked backwards toward the distant doorstep.

Nightfall

Doubting Thomas II

Threshold

Equinox

Water Sign

detail of Watersign

Cold Front

detail of Cold Front

The Icebreakers

Birthday

The New Year

Deucalion

Untitled

Casting Off

Casting Off explores my family's struggle with the sale of an ancestral home. Our joint hold on the property eroded in the turbulence caused by my grandmother's death, and I felt seized by helplessness. In response, I sought out painted scenes of longing, humor or reflection. I found the fugitive quality of each painting's meaning became an ally in exploring my emotions surrounding the house. The narrative uncertainty mirrored the actual uncertainty our family faced, and allowed me to map and remap my own interpretations of each image as we moved closer to letting the house go.

The Perseids

Extension

Casting Off

detail of Casting Off

State of Grace

detail of State of Grace

At Home

detail of At Home

The Withdrawal

Recessional

Preparations at Dusk

Distant Waves

Bedtime Story

Like Falling

Ready or Not

detail of Ready or Not

Inner Harbor

The Porter

We All Have Something to Do

We All Have Something to Do marks the first body of work where I recognized a direction my automatic drawing technique was leading me, and where I consciously decided to follow. At the time, I noticed that many of the images I made since my grandmother's death in 2001 had been unconsciously set in or around her old house on the south shore of Massachusetts. Her absence created a great insecurity for our family, which had been bound to the house for four generations. The subsequent images tended to incorporate the tools of my carpentry trade, and reflected the precarious divide between emotional maintenance and deterioration in the wake of a major family change.

Major grants in 2004 and 2005 sustained the completion of this body of work, which was comprised of a continuation of large color paintings on canvas, and a line of smaller monochromatic paintings on panels.