Matt Sesow

"Matt Sesow's nightmarish portraits possess a voracious brutality that hits the eyes like sand, but embed in the heart with unexpected wonder"
-- (Timothy Cahill, Albany New York Times Union, 2004)

"Sesow didn't have any formal art training, but his work is gaining recognition in the small but growing world of so-called visionary art. The genre -- sometimes called outsider art, art brut or contemporary folk art -- groups works by self-trained artists who deal with very personal issues, often their own disabilities... Through his art, Sesow worked through the emotional knots created by his childhood accident.... Sesow's paintings communicate the emotional power of his healing. One of his works in the AVAM exhibit, titled "Out of Water," depicts in loose, abstracted brush strokes and bright colors a scuba diver emerging from water. On his goggles is a line with three crosses that Sesow uses to symbolize the trauma of his childhood accident. For years after his hand was amputated Sesow wore prosthetics, but about a year after he started painting, he gained confidence and stopped wearing his artificial hand. Sesow feels freed now that he doesn't have to try to be and look like something he isn't. ..."
-- (Cate Hescox, Reuters News, October 2004 read full interview by clicking here)

"Sesow's explosively colored and powerfuly composed expressionist paintings in this exhibition are broad brushed self-portraits with a compellingly dramatic tension that draws in the viewer. Both 'Setting Sail' and 'Out of Water' capture on canvas and board doubling figures, expressions, and markings-- on the first-- and a powerful head complete with a characteristic Sesow trauma scar marker on the second..."
-- (Tony Harvey... regarding Sesow paintings at 'Holy H2O' AVAM show, Intowner magazine, Washington DC, Oct. 2004)

"(Sesow)...is a master of angular lines and jarring color"
-- (J. Bowers, City Paper Baltimore, Oct. 2004)

"Every stroke (of Sesow's) is like a cannonball hitting the canvas"
--(Chris Warner/Alcove Gallery, Atlanta Magazine, 2004)

"Matt Sesow, whose "Bunny Collector" could hold its own with Grosz, and whose "Hellbound III" posits a universe where Francis Bacon and Edvard Munch are the same."
-- (Las Vegas Mercury, 2003)

"The essential appeal of the outsider spirit in art is robustly exemplified by the compelling impact of a Matt Sesow painting. His finest works tend to gather themselves to lunge at you and take root in unguarded channels of emotion"
--(New Art International, Book Art Press. 2003)

(Regarding paintings done by Sesow for the Hollywood play 'F**king Wasps' about Alfred Kinsey, by Steve Haskell) "The set consisted essentially of a blue piano and several immense paintings by DC-based artist Matt Sesow, which were commissioned by the director for the production. These complex, savage, allegorical portraits not only represented but actually contained the entire psychological subtext of the play. Their vivid, unsettling presence gave the rigid agony of the performances a context and a dignity that despite their best intentions they might not have achieved otherwise. The art was there to say no, that despite the defenses, controls and masks, inside everyone there is a mass of turmoil and contradiction. The paintings were an integral part of the content of the production, not just its style. The said more about the Kinsey the man than Kinswy ever could. That is exactly what I was looking for at the LA Art show, what I look for all the time now. For art that takes the human condition seriously, and engages with it, even at great risk to itself."
-- (Coagula Magazine, Hollywood, CA, 2003. Shana Nys Dambrot)

"Brace yourself. Maybe even toss back a stiff drink before you go. Because to encounter Matt Sesow's paintings is to enter a maelstrom. Undiluted primary colors fly off the wall, blinding, dazzling. Frenetic lines thrash violently. And Sesow's disturbing, distorted images needle and jab.... Viewing the current wall of Sesow's work is like eavesdropping on the artist's ongoing argument with the world. With paint he shouts down and wrestles with his tangled personal and political issues. And we get to watch wide-eyed."
--(Laura Parsons, from 'the hook', Charlottesville, VA... regarding Sesow's 2004 show)

"Matt is a true Brutarian, a self-taught painter who, despite having his work extensively shown and written about, has little interest in becoming part of the art network. Sesow appears unconcerned with communicating in the accepted tropes of the professional; he defers to no recognized code, nor to the rules of any recognized idiom. "Crude!" "Unfinished!" "Aberrant!" the boulevardier may jeer, but it may well be that Matt's approach results in a creative range beyond the normal compass of our responses . . .Perhaps not, nevertheless, Mr. Sesow has created a fascinating body of work "
--Interivew with Matt Sesow from "Brutarian" magazine, issue #28

"I suppose everybody has experienced some pain and fear in their lives. Just as paintings of pretty flowers and sunsets with horsies make us smile and feel content, I want to paint emotionally charged intense works that cause discomfort or inspire people to challenge themselves. I had some unique physical trauma as a child that got me started on this path... I'm a generally happy person, but I have taught myself to channel anger and intensity in art. The best musicians and painters have done it, those are my heroes."