Monument

About Matthew Cornell

Matthew Cornell’s first memories are of traveling across the United States in a car. His childhood was, in a sense, the quintessential American experience, because the notion of a “road trip” was conceived and perpetrated by Americans. It is these experiences driving across this land at a young age that formed his way of seeing things. Cornell says, “Every year we travelled across the US and I spent most of my time looking out of the window and observing the landscape and weather. We moved a lot and I got to see almost every part of this country. It was a blessing. It made me aware of the variety and the vastness the US has to offer.”

After his parents died, he set out on a journey find all of the homes he had lived in. To reconnect with the past and to better understand the sense of home. 14 paintings emerged in a show called “Pilgrimage.” It also included the childhood homes of his parents and his wife. “It was a year and a half of discoveries. Some known and some unknown. Finding my childhood dinosaur drawings on the wall of a Kentucky house we lived in, still intact in the basement over 40 years later, was a remarkable find. Long forgotten, it was like discovering cave drawings and finding out, in a way, that my path in life was meant to be. It was profound and emotional.” The last 3 years include works that are about the roads between these homes. Along the blue highways of America, where he essentially grew up. “It’s where I feel most comfortable. Finding the America that makes the most sense to me. I love the discovery. I don’t always use a map or have a plan. I just go.”

Recent exhibitions include Pilgrimage, Paintings by Matthew Cornell, Arcadia Contemporary, New York, NY (2015); Contemporary Realism Biennial, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Ft Wayne, IN (2014); Small Works, Arcadia Contemporary (2014); In Good Company, Quidley and Company, Boston, MA (2014); Face to Face: Artists’ Self-Portraits from the Collection of Jackye & Curtis Finch, Jr. Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR (2013). Cornell’s work is included in the collections of City of Winter Park, FL; City of Tampa, FL; Daytona Museum of Art, Daytona, FL; Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AK; Maitland Art Center, Maitland, FL; as well as many private collections.