Gallery1515 is hosting an Inauguration Day Open House featuring new paintings by Washington D.C. based artist Matt Sesow.
Exhibition continues until January 30th.
All paintings from the November/December segment of the exhibit have sold out. Paintings on loan from private collections remain on view.

Please join us on this intense and historical day to take in some thought-provoking art and reflect on the state of our world.
All welcome.

Friday January 20th 7-9pm
1515 West 7th ave, Vancouver

About the artist:
Born in Omaha, Nebraska, Matt Sesow is a self-taught Washington DC based artist. Sesow’s expressive painting style is influenced by street art, politics, and current events. His symbolically rich compositions use raw, rapid, and expressive techniques, often depicting figurative scenes, dense with detail and fraught with emotion. When Sesow was 8 years old he was struck by the propeller of a landing airplane, ultimately losing his dominant hand as a result of the accident. Untrained and self-taught, Sesow started painting in 1995 as an emotional reaction to his disability and was quickly discovered by collectors of folk, visionary and outsider art.
His work has been widely exhibited, most notably at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland, the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia, the Corcoran Museum in Washington DC and galleries in France, Australia and Barcelona. In September of 2013, Sesow was honored to have his work featured on a postage stamp issued by the United Nations Postal Administration (UNPA) along with artists such as Chuck Close.

About the show:
At first glance, Matt Sesow’s colourful and dynamic expressionist paintings may be unsettling to the eye, but these powerfully composed works are intended to challenge and inspire viewers beyond the limits of their typical responses. Sesow’s bold portrayals of political figures, social hierarchy, inner turmoil, and powerful and vulnerable animals, capture our attention and sometimes evoke discomfort. They take us to a place of brutality, shock, and awe. His raw and turbulent style results from the unique traumatic events in his life; as a child, the propeller of a landing plane severed his dominant hand and forearm. Through the cathartic act of painting, Sesow expresses the trauma that exists inside of him, and simultaneously considers the suffering, turmoil and contradiction that exists within society at large. A resident of Washington D.C., Sesow’s proximity to the political center of the United States has undeniably influenced his compelling work. With the divisive nature of partisan politics, the vain disputes and petty calculations, the ugly entanglements and bickering of politicians, one cannot deny the existence of faulty systems that are readily being exposed. Sesow’s audacious paintings mirror and reflect the collective trauma in a politicized and troubled world that begs re-orientation, reformation and renewal.