Matt Read

A Moonwalking Artist

Photo by Jessica Oleksy

I'm super excited to introduce to you Matt Read an Austin based artist, musician, writer, illustrator, and teacher. Matt just graduated from Texas State University with a B.F.A. in Art. I met Matt at Austin Camera where he worked while he was going through school. The crew at Austin Camera are mostly previous employees of Wolf Camera in Austin that worked together. They reunited at Austin Camera bringing that old school camera store feel back into Austin.

Matt is a man of many talents and it will be difficult to cover them all in this post but I'll try to give you taste and feel of his work. Matt is always inspired and looking for new projects to start. For him art is just a part of life, he feels that his ideas would be put to waste if he wasn't creating. During Matt's childhood his mom was an art teacher and Matt always had access to art supplies.

He loves the comic book classics including X-Man, Batman, Spiderman and Black Hole. Matt is currently working on three projects including his own self-published book called "Republican Jelly."  Matt is influenced by Frank Frazetta, Charles Burns and Jack Kirby.  Check out the image below for a flavor of what you would experience in his book.

from Republican Jelly 
​Written and Illustrated by Matt Read

SAM

IRENE

Tell me about your photography/art background?

I’ve just always done art for as long as I can remember. My mother was an artist, so I grew up creating things and had access to supplies. It was always just a part of life for me. I started getting into in photography in junior high. It was just another means of producing images and at some
point in my twenties, photography became a way of supplementing my income. I’ve always had a pretty strong separation between my professional work and my artistic work though.

​What kind of subjects do you shoot? What are you currently working on?

I’ll shoot just about anything. Landscapes, people, objects, moments in myown life. I may not use those images for anything right away, if ever though. Sometimes I have negatives that sit around for years before they ever become something tangible. A lot of my photographic work comes out of unconventional darkroom techniques. So, a negative that I’ve shot may only be a small part of the final image.

I’m always working on several things at once. It would probably be more efficient to simply work a single project from start to finish but I get so bored working that way. Lately, I’d say I’ve been more focused on illustrative work. I’m doing some drawings for a book called, "Republican
Jelly" that is a collection of absurd short stories and illustrations. I’ve also been working on a comic. I have some paintings in the works too.

Death of a noble penguin at the hand......

Republican Jelly Sample
THE GREAT PENGUIN MIGRATION
Sample
BY MATT READ

It was in August of nineteen ninety-six, in the city of New York, when I personally witnessed the rare and unforgettable marvel of The Great Penguin Migration. It was early evening and I was looking out the window of my seventh story apartment and enjoying a glass of strong port when I first noticed an immense black spot blotting out the stars of the late summer sky. Within minutes I could make out thousands of tiny specks looming over the New York City skyline and when these mysterious forms finally came into focus, I could recognize the unmistakable pear shapes of penguins fluttering in hordes through the night.

What inspires you as an artist?

I get depressed if I go too long without making something new. So there’s that. Sometimes it’s an idea that I have or a specific image that I want to make. I might have a theory about how to use a medium in a particular way that I want to experiment with. Sometimes it’s as simple as wanting to
feel ink on paper or paint on canvas. The physical act in and of itself can be pretty gratifying.

Who is your biggest inspiration?  

Well, Van Gogh has always been a big one for me. Vince is my man. The Impressionists and Post-Impressionists really got me into painting. Marcel Duchamp is a big one too. I can have a pretty irreverent approach to making art sometimes so I really relate to artists like Duchamp, Ai Wei
Wei, Rauschenberg.

Tremble Before My Destruction

Matt's art is so diverse. Some of his work is playful, some beautiful, you can tell that he has reached of level of creativity that most artist take a lifetime to accomplish. His fine art photos use color to enhance the composition but there is simplistic beauty in which less is more. As far as his illustrations go his lines are clean and playful and there is this underlying sense of humor in it, both in his writing and in his illustrations. With each piece of his art you get a little piece of who Matt is but he never gives you the complete picture.

Matt is also and accomplished musician playing in bands locally since he was around 12 years old. He played in a band called Fighting 90, more recently a band called Duke. This is where he came up with the name for his comic book. If you would like to check out Matt's music please go to his website which is linked below and there is also a link to a music video he did with Duke.

What are your goals as an artist?  Right now, my biggest immediate goals are to just finish up a bunch of projects that have been in the works a long time.  

"When the future looks bleak, just remember - the past wasn't any better."  -   Taken from Republican Jelly written and illustrated by Matt Read

Please check out more of Matt's work on his website here.

Or you can follow Matt on his Instagram

Matt's music video with his band Duke called The Cruiser.

Every artist that I introduce I would like to inspire just one person.