Matt Bahen | Was Once Only Imagined

MATT BAHEN WAS ONCE ONLY IMAGINED

March 2nd – March 28th, 2024

Was Once Only Imagined takes its exhibition title from the English poet and printmaker William Blake’s visionary book, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: “What is now proved was once only imagined.”

A voracious reader, literary sources are the foundation of Bahen’s practice. He consumes everything from landmarks of classical literature and poetry to staples of popular culture. The paintings in Was Once Only Imagined take inspiration from a variety of genres, including the writings of playwright Anton Chekhov, the world of Frank Herbert’s Dune, and Bahen’s recurrent inspiration Cormac McCarthy.

“I strive to interpret the power of metaphor and allegory

in the landscapes I paint. While the work may evoke a particular place, they’re composites of locations I imagine while reading books, or sections taken from my own and other source material. I want to allow the viewer room to enter the paintings with their own interpretations.”

- Matt Bahen

Matt Bahen

All Things Are Fragile and Must Be Cared For, 2023 oil on canvas 60 x 66 in. $ 14,000.00

Matt Bahen

The Order of Witness, but There are Many Who Witness, 2024 oil on canvas 60 x 66 in. $ 14,000.00

Matt Bahen

And at the Summit a Voice, 2023 oil on canvas 34 x 36 in. $ 8,000.00

Matt Bahen

Tree of the Twelve Fruits, 2024 oil on canvas 72 x 78 in. $ 16,000.00

Matt Bahen’s choice of oil paint as his medium, as well as his application of it, have come to define his practice. Bahen wields his brush in a way that emphasizes the materiality of his surfaces. He is a “painter’s painter”, akin to Kiefer and Freud, layering the surfaces of his canvases with intentional, thickly impastoed brushstrokes.

Matt Bahen

An Imperfect Symmetry, 2024 oil on canvas 26 1/2 x 31 in. $ 7,000.00

Matt Bahen

Out of the Mountains, 2023 oil on canvas 48 x 54 in. $ 12,000.00

Matt Bahen

He Came to Believe, 2023 oil on canvas 30 x 36 in. $ 8,000.00

Matt Bahen was born in 1979 in Toronto, and was raised in Schomberg, Ontario. He received his BFA from the Ontario College of Art in 2002. Bahen is represented in Toronto, Edmonton, and New York. His work is in the permanent collections of the Art Gallery of Hamilton, Ontario College of Art and Design, Canadian National Landscaping Association, BMO Financial Group, CIBC, and various financial institutions.

In 2013, his solo exhibition, Gravity's Faith, was held at the MacLaren Art Centre in Barrie. In 2022, Bahen had a solo exhibition at the Glenhyrst Art Gallery in Brantford, Ontario. A new exhibition of his work, Coming Down the Mountain, opens at The McIntosh Gallery at Western University on April 1st, 2024.