Matt Harley, A.O.C.A.
The Life Artistic in Seven Blurbs & One Footnote
Matt Harley’s paintings and drawings combine traditional materials and subjects with contemporary strategies and concerns. Approximately one third of his artistic practice currently seeks meaningful ways to reconfigure painting and drawing as pseudo-Duchampian, site-specific/site-variable installation.
The son of a freelance cartoonist, Matt Harley is understandably drawn to the cartoon world considering his first art lesson (at age two-and-a-half, delivered by his brother, aged four) was nothing less than a wall-sized explanation of human visual perception in the phenomenal world, realized with a single crayon, described in terms of the observable properties of light acting in relation to the mathematically predictable yet spontaneously sublime Daffy Duck Hotel.*
Matt Harley does not like the term “artistic practice” preferring to think that he practiced during his art college years and now simply makes stuff that may or may not be art.
Although he knew at age three that he would one day attend the Ontario College of Art (1975-78), Matt Harley has always disliked getting paint on his fingers; a foible that led, shortly after the beginning Kindergarten and the onset of finger-painting (1958), to the first of countless moments of doubt regarding the probability of actually learning anything at school. Matt
Harley failed grade 12 Art, even though his assignments received consistent A’s and A+’s. The reason given: finishing most of the projects at home on the weekend. As further punishment for this diligence, the teacher confiscated the completed projects, putting them on permanent display in the art room for years afterwards as sterling examples of how best to complete the assignments.
Despite daily efforts to come to terms with whether art is now a branch of philosophy or the other way around, Matt Harley’s dreams and aspirations still include several variations on the theme of climbing to the ultimate pinnacle of the art-world pyramid (as well as somehow getting his studio to begin to resemble those seen occasionally in celebrity-culture magazines).
Matt Harley is a Montrealer who has just never had the pleasure of living in Montreal.
* This life altering, early childhood ‘art lesson’ is also notable for having included his older brother’s demonstrations of several specific lighting effects applied to a cross-corporate assortment of seven iconic, animated-cartoon characters. Fifty-five years later, Matt Harley clearly recalls this cartoon pantheon as being: Walter Lanz’s Chilly Willy; MGM’s Tom (without Jerry) & Droopy Dog (dutifully operating the hotel elevator); Walt Disney’s Goofy, Donald Duck, & Daisy Duck; and of course Warner Bros.’ Daffy Duck. Paired in his brother’s mural with Daisy Duck for whatever reason, Matt Harley also clearly recalls thinking at the time how, as an artistic decision, the ‘unusual’ pairing of Daisy with Daffy, instead of Donald, was strangely unsettling leaving an unexplainably scandalous impression.
www.mattharleypainting.com
Matt Harley’s paintings and drawings combine traditional materials and subjects with contemporary strategies and concerns. Approximately one third of his artistic practice currently seeks meaningful ways to reconfigure painting and drawing as pseudo-Duchampian, site-specific/site-variable installation.
The son of a freelance cartoonist, Matt Harley is understandably drawn to the cartoon world considering his first art lesson (at age two-and-a-half, delivered by his brother, aged four) was nothing less than a wall-sized explanation of human visual perception in the phenomenal world, realized with a single crayon, described in terms of the observable properties of light acting in relation to the mathematically predictable yet spontaneously sublime Daffy Duck Hotel.*
Matt Harley does not like the term “artistic practice” preferring to think that he practiced during his art college years and now simply makes stuff that may or may not be art.
Although he knew at age three that he would one day attend the Ontario College of Art (1975-78), Matt Harley has always disliked getting paint on his fingers; a foible that led, shortly after the beginning Kindergarten and the onset of finger-painting (1958), to the first of countless moments of doubt regarding the probability of actually learning anything at school. Matt
Harley failed grade 12 Art, even though his assignments received consistent A’s and A+’s. The reason given: finishing most of the projects at home on the weekend. As further punishment for this diligence, the teacher confiscated the completed projects, putting them on permanent display in the art room for years afterwards as sterling examples of how best to complete the assignments.
Despite daily efforts to come to terms with whether art is now a branch of philosophy or the other way around, Matt Harley’s dreams and aspirations still include several variations on the theme of climbing to the ultimate pinnacle of the art-world pyramid (as well as somehow getting his studio to begin to resemble those seen occasionally in celebrity-culture magazines).
Matt Harley is a Montrealer who has just never had the pleasure of living in Montreal.
* This life altering, early childhood ‘art lesson’ is also notable for having included his older brother’s demonstrations of several specific lighting effects applied to a cross-corporate assortment of seven iconic, animated-cartoon characters. Fifty-five years later, Matt Harley clearly recalls this cartoon pantheon as being: Walter Lanz’s Chilly Willy; MGM’s Tom (without Jerry) & Droopy Dog (dutifully operating the hotel elevator); Walt Disney’s Goofy, Donald Duck, & Daisy Duck; and of course Warner Bros.’ Daffy Duck. Paired in his brother’s mural with Daisy Duck for whatever reason, Matt Harley also clearly recalls thinking at the time how, as an artistic decision, the ‘unusual’ pairing of Daisy with Daffy, instead of Donald, was strangely unsettling leaving an unexplainably scandalous impression.
www.mattharleypainting.com