Commission season

School is out, summer is under way and the months of painting outside on location are here at last. This is the season when I can schedule time to travel and take on commissioned projects both locally and abroad.
So many of our personal stories, our memories and even our legacies are associated with buildings where we grew up, married, worked or raised our family. Contact me for more information about commissioning an original painting of a building that has a special significance in your life.

The Book of Kings

#9   watercolour on panel 24" x 24"

Its summer and school is out which means several things can move ahead in the studio at a faster pace. Which is exciting. I've been working on a book of my bucket paintings for a few years now and this is the summer to pull the trigger. Its a coffee table book exploring relationships and universal aspects of the human experience using buckets and tools as a metaphorical language.  Here's a link to a page where you can contribute money to help get the project into the publication phase should you be moved so to do. Every donation at any level is greatly appreciated, and donors at the $100 level will receive a Chicago Skyline fine art Print.
The Book of Kings

This will be the biggest collection of my new work in over 3 years

Barns and boats, the American rural landscape, the traditional structures associated with the getting and gathering of food. The yield of my sketchbooks from Maine, Saugatuck, Indiana and Wisconsin. I'm very excited to be unveiling over 30 new paintings in May.

Hunting and Gathering
New Works by Mat Barber Kennedy
Renaissance Fine Art
31 E Main Street,
Carmel, Indiana 46032
317 506 8477
May 11 ~ June 15 
Opening Reception May 11,  5 ~ 10 pm

Smallest Painting I've done in a while

Dory By The Sea
Watercolour on coarse acrylic ground. 6" x 6"
My thanks go out to my colleague in the Fine Art Department at The American Academy of Art, Chris Cosnowski for lending me some silverpoint ground to try which had separated and become unusable which led me to plastering it with coarse acrylic ground which made me think of sand which made me think of lobster fishing in Maine.

Incremental change

Minnow Bucket at Low Tide  watercolour 20" x 28"

I've had this on my board for a year and I finally finished it and sent it up to The Edgewood Orchard gallery last week. I needed a fishing boat to be dragged up into the tidal banks.

Boat Machine

Over the past three years I have developed a passion for the working boats of America's coastal and inland waterways. Shrimp boats, tug boats, small fishing boats and large, commercial shipping vessels. This one was moored in Bath, Maine and I had a great quiet perch on the dock to paint it from. Utilitarian. Engineered more than designed. Humble and beautiful. Imperfect. Useful and used.

Gallery Action

Tugboats at Sturgeon Bay #4

Summer is fast approaching and I'm getting work out for new shows. There's 6 on show in London at the Mall Galleries at the moment, I'm shipping 6 up to Door County in Wisconsin tomorrow night (including Tugboats #4), and then I need to produce some more new pieces for my solo show in Carmel in May. Meanwhile there's a piece going into print for a hotel in Baltimore and I just got an order for a second piece to go with it it all the guest rooms. That piece has to be done in the next ten days, while the Semester draws to a close at the Academy, the BFA show has to be finished and everyone's portfolio presentations attended. I thrive under this kind of workload, and I do my best work. But Sherry and the boys might not like me quite so much and I certainly miss being with them.