Toronto based painter Matt Bahen’s primary influence is literature. He strives to interpret the power of metaphor and allegory with paint. Bahen listens to audiobooks while working and is an avid reader of fiction, particularly Cormac McCarthy, TS Eliot, and Joseph Campbell. His impastoed surfaces and stark compositions are at once unsettling and highly engaging. Using various motifs including water, fire, and animals, Bahen constructs individual narratives that remain in a state of perpetual tension.
Matt Bahen was born in 1979 and raised in Schomberg Ontario. He recieved his BFA from the Ontario College of Art and Design in 2002. In 2013, his solo exhibition, Gravity’s Faith, was held at the MacLaren Art Centre in Barrie Ontario, Bahen is represented in Edmonton, Toronto and New York.