About the artist

I have been painting Westport-Compo landscapes for 30 years. I have studied watercolor and oil painting with my father, the caricaturist and painter David Levine, and with Aaron Shikler, Daniel Schwartz, Burt Silverman and Harvey Dinnerstein.

All of my paintings refer to a person, place, or thing I’ve encountered, so in that sense I am a representational painter. I paint locations near me, and at different times of the year, because that’s what I know and have come to appreciate over time. I am not interested in exact representation, but more in conveying the feeling of being alive to witness the beauty of the world, and in the simultaneous richness of other artists’ images that seem somehow awakened in me in the presence of an object. For example, when I am painting at Compo Beach, I am also seeing what my father saw at Coney Island, or what Constable saw at Hampstead Heath, or Homer in Bermuda, etc. That’s how a painting starts for me.

From there I become involved in exploring the possibilities of the medium itself (watercolor, oil, pastel, pencil) and in overcoming my own limitations as a user of the medium. In that way, mistakes become opportunities, and I pursue the image rather than the thing it’s based on. I return to a site (or an object or a model) many times to get at the heart of my perception. I also sketch or take photographs to record the more fleeting moments of light that heighten my perception, and I refer to those recordings later in the painting process. Finally, I react to only what the painting gives me and seems to need in order to satisfy me. In a certain sense, I am never finished with a painting or with a subject, I just move on to my next obsession!

My work has been shown at The Rowayton Art Center, at Picture This and at other galleries in Connecticut. I am also a Marketing and Communications consultant in the nonprofit sector. I live in Westport with my wife, Patricia, my son, Noah (who visits on occasion), and our dog, Maceo.

Matthew Levine