Photo by Jayson Keeling
Matt Shane was born in 1981 in Vancouver. He makes paintings, drawings, and room-sized collaborative installations that are anchored in the realm of landscape. His pictorial worlds follow a Romantic lineage and arrive at a mysterious borderland, empty of human inhabitants but carved and constructed with human intention. Dwellings, gardens, and piles of rubble are linked by associative threads in a dream-like web of proximity.
Shane obtained an MFA from Concordia University in 2013. He has received numerous grants and awards and has co-organized 20 large-scale collaborative drawing installations alongside his friend and collaborator, Jim Holyoak. He has toured widely and done residencies and exhibitions on three continents. His recent collaborative works have been shown at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, the Midlands Arts Centre Birmingham, and the Teckningsmuseet in Sweden. Shane teaches Drawing and Painting at Concordia University and his work is represented by McBride Contemporain in Montreal.
Video by Jorge Camarotti for CBC Arts: Exhibitionists
PRESS
Times Colonist by Robert Amos:
Forestrial Brain, a collaborative installation-painting by Matt Shane of Pender Island and Jim Holyoak of Montreal at Open Space on Fort Street, is the biggest, most complex and engaging artistic creation I can ever remember in that space . . . read more
Galleries West by Portia Priegert:
Jim Holyoak and Matt Shane are doing things backwards. They will hold their “opening” reception Aug. 25 at the end of their show at Open Space . . . read more
Body Literature Magazine by Jessica Mensch:
Matt Shane‘s practice is split between painting, drawing and installation, while firmly embedded in the realm of landscape. His pictorial worlds assemble an array of influences: European Romantics, Chinese ink painters, the Hudson River School, the Group of Seven, science fiction, photojournalism . . . read more