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In the quietness of painting discoveries
are made. The engaged eye and the
motivated hand find that certain things just
fit together. The eye
notices that particular parts enhance other parts.
The hand pushes shapes to form groups.
Groups become taught synergies. When
this tightness begins to vibrate I stop.
When the engaged eye looks at nature the
imagination is released. The eye
has something to get lost in, something to find a way through.
When motivated by the hand the act
of looking becomes imaginative.
This imaginative gaze leads to a silent understanding.
The feel of this activity becomes a need.
That is how painting is for me.
What do I find myself looking at?
For nearly a decade it has been the spaces I live in.
At this point these spaces have attained a kind of mythic quality for
me. They have become the locus of
my imagination. I originally
painted memories of the house I grew up in.
In representing its large fire lit rooms I recreated my original world.
These paintings were like the caveman’s hand painted on the walls of
Lascaux.
Every mark said, “I am here, my consciousness, my world, my life, matters.”
And, by analogy, so does the viewer’s.
My paintings became a statement against nihilism.
My current sunlit paintings offer a place for spirits to rest and the
mind to soar. Sunlight streams in,
objects glow in its glory or nestle in its shadows.
One can sit in a comfortable chair, pet a cat, feel the warmth of
sunlight, and let the mind's eye get lost in trees and clouds.
A landscape enters through windows.
The already stretched space then becomes infinite.
Safe, limited space becomes heavenly.
Matthew Lopas
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