We were lucky to catch up with Matthew Grabelsky recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Matthew, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?
I’ve always loved learning and making things. Most people go through a stage when they’re kids when they ask nonstop questions. I’ve never stoped asking questions. I love learning new things and I constantly reevaluate what I think I know. I studied science in college and part of what I got from that experience was the understanding that anything I know may be wrong or incomplete. That viewpoint drives me to keep questioning and learning.
For as long as I can remember I’ve loved being creative and making things with my hands. In my career as an an artist I’ve never had to push myself to make art. Making art is an obsession and the the part I struggle with is reminding myself that sometimes I need to take a break and embrace the other parts of my life.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I’m an artist and I’m best known for my realistic paintings of people with animal heads. I’ve been making art my whole life and up till college I mostly made mixed media sculpture. An art history class in college sparked my fascination with Old Master and 19th century European painting and that set me on the path to becoming a painter.
In my paintings I combine a meticulous oil painting technique with humorous imagery of anthropomorphic characters. I love the idea that I can take a very serious approach to painting and mix it with something strange and unexpected to make myself, and hopefully, others laugh.
The majority of my paintings to date have been set on the New York City subway. I grew up in New York and the subway always felt like the central mixing place for people in the city. Lately, I’ve been asking myself where these characters go when they get off the subway. The answers to that question will be the next phase in my work.
I’m currently working on a new group of paintings for my next show coming up in April at Dorothy Circus Gallery in Rome.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Being creative, coming up with ideas, and making art has always come naturally to me. The challenge that has taken the most work has been learning and continuing to develop my technique. Often, I’ll hear people talk about technique as a cold thing separate from art. I couldn’t disagree with this perspective more. For an artist, technique is the language you use to express your ideas and so mastering that technique is essential to getting your ideas across. In the case of painting, technique literally is the painting itself. I knew I wanted to make realistic paintings in oil so I spent years learning how to see and how to capture what I saw in an interesting style in oil paint. I continue to refine my technique as I continue to develop the ideas and imagery that I want to convey with it.
Like many artists I’ve always been most interested in making art. However, to have a successful art career I’ve had to learn the business side of art as well. This has involved connecting and working with galleries, using social media and other forms of publicity to get my work out there, and learning how to work with clients and collectors. Learning all of these skills has gotten me to the place where I’m able to support myself with my art and do what I really want to do which is to spend as much of my time as possible in my studio painting.
The last thing that’s throughly enriched my artistic experience has been building an art community. Making art is very solitary and so connecting with other artists makes me feel like I am part of something large and meaningful. I love talking about art with my artist friends, showing them what I’m working on, and seeing what they are making. These interactions give me new ideas and keep me excited about making art.
Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?
I’m in my studio almost every day working. Eventually, I hit a wall and don’t know what to do next. The number one thing that has always helped when I get to this point is to take a trip. This shifts my perspective, gives me new creative ideas, and gets me excited to keep working. I’ve never found that I could just sit in a room and come up with new ideas. They need to be sparked by something and traveling never fails to do this for me.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.grabelsky.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/grabelsky/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/grabelsky/
