Featured Artist: Matthew Sievers

Matthew Sievers steps up to his easel with passion and energy, qualities that stream from his palette knife and brush in great sweeps of vibrant color and emotion. Sievers came to art at an early age, studying with his father, Gregory Sievers, an accomplished professional artist. They explored an array of mediums and styles together, and his father’s encouragement and guidance laid a solid foundation upon which Matthew’s talent could thrive and expand. “Our home was filled with art,” he says. “Outside my bedroom door hung an ink drawing of Charlie Chaplin, a cubist painting of a royal king and queen, and a diverse range of other artworks.” Within such a rich environment it is no surprise that Matthew felt free to experiment widely to find his own artistic voice.

When the time came, Sievers studied art formally at Brigham Young University-Idaho and Utah State University where he delved into a variety of mediums and subject matter. Traveling in Africa and Europe broadened his understanding of art as expressed in other cultures, but he still considers his father to be his greatest inspiration.

Sievers’ signature style is uniquely recognizable. Applying paint liberally and laying in his brush and palette knife work side by side allows the artist to sharply contrast soft passages with bold, expressive impasto textures. He is fascinated with how light on these different surfaces creates interest and varies the viewer’s experience from day to night. Combined with his preference for glowing color, these are works with an underlying sense of joyousness that increasingly draw collectors’ appreciation.

Sievers’s newest work explores abstraction in the individual elements and beauty of the human form: “My figurative series is an expression of the beauty I see in people doing everyday things,” he says. “I’m trying to convey a scene without getting distracted by the details or over-rendering the likeness, to move instead toward capturing the essence of my subjects.”