Featured Pop-Up Artists

James Mattison

September 29 – October 29

Gallery at the Grand

1 Chase Hill Rd. Kennebunk, Maine

Open 10 AM

I’ve always admired artists that boldly use color. It takes confidence to view color as a choice. Light and shadow inspire countless possibilities and color arrangements, and it is with those choices between the lines that an artist proves their sense of certainty.

My paintings and their subjects are meant to invoke a feeling of relatability. Typically, my portraiture isn’t anyone in particular. But they are relatable figures. I’ve worked many jobs that required close reading of peoples’ body language and behaviors, and to me, it’s instinctive for an audience to look at someone with intention and try to understand an emotion. I think that instinct is crucial in how someone may interpret a painting. How do we read the expression on their face? What is their body language telling us? Adding these factors together will give the audience a sense of what the subject is expressing, and we, as the viewer, can relate that feeling to a time and place of our own experience. These emotionally charged portraits are an introspective take on moments of honesty with myself.

My landscapes generally have a sunny and warm disposition. They feel comfortable and, more often than not, come from a sense of gratitude. They may be places I’ve visited and found a striking or fabricated scene that feels more like a memory. When I paint, it’s an outlet. Whatever I feel at a given moment eventually reaches the canvas. Whether it’s a person, place, or thing, I hope to capture a sense of solitude. My work is technically unique and fused with a feeling of connective emotionality. That’s where the value lies. Painting is a means to express myself and to start a conversation with a sense of honesty and a feeling of togetherness through times of remoteness.