Introducing Matt Courtney, the next artist in our Open Studios Series.
Matt Courtney showed an early interest in art. But, he followed another interest and became a software engineer. It was almost 10 years later when a chance event brought him back to making art. A social group he was in offered a figure drawing event at a local art museum. The event woke his long neglected artistic side, and he never stopped making art since.
Matt found drawing limiting and quickly moved on to his medium of choice, oil paint. His preferred subject is figures and portraits with the occasional dragon tossed in. He will often spend a year of more on a single large scale painging. He strives for realism and beauty in his paintings, playing with how color and light interact with the figure.
Recently, Matthew has explored fine art stone carving. His stone pieces have centered around animals (reptiles specifically and he's currently working on a dragon) carved in alabaster stone. The natural patterns in the polished alabaster stone give life to the animals carved in it.
Check out Matt's Facebook here and see more on his Silicon Valley Open Studios Site here. If you want to check out his schedule for Open Studios you can see that here