About:
Matthew Daniel Schimsky is a Philadelphia based artist. Matthew is also a professional certified dog trainer, a retired restaurant magician and a stay-at-home father (on Fridays).
Artist Statement:
I make art through a consistent daily drawing practice. My goal is to make the most of drawings done in those short moments between other activities. I have a fascination with the drawings done on the sides of notebooks and on empty outer frames of printouts. There is something so interesting in the mindless marks of a Bic pen and the heavy thick black lines traced over and over while doodle day-dreaming. There is beauty in the marks we make in places where no one else is likely to see; perhaps it is the knowledge that these drawings are all predetermined as frivolous, and so we have no fear of scrutiny. However, these off-hand drawings are, in short, records of the most simple on-going conversations between the brain and the hand. They are small moments of thought that make for complex inside jokes.
Chris Martin, an abstract painter living in New York City, once said that his daily increasing stockpile of generative drawings are far superior and more advanced than his paintings. He described his drawing as more free than his paintings and possessed something far more complicated and deeply rooted in his subconscious. He explained that his paintings were not yet ready and perhaps might never be ready to do what the drawings could.
For these reasons I appreciate an artists whose work is less refined so that you can feel the arc of their arm or engage the work on the level of its process. The drafts, the doodles and other marks of initial intention can often be more engaging then the final picture.
I admire Artists like Francis Picabia, Joan Miró, Elizabeth Murray, Matthew Richie, Ray Johnson and William Kentridge. I appreciate Nicola Lopez’s work for the graphic quality and use of environmental space in the presentation.
Gallery Show: Density of Character
Older Works:
