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Clam Digger, Matt Klos

A brief shout-out for a pair of excellent young emerging artists who have solo shows just opening: Matt Woodward and Matt Klos. Both have exhibited here in Rochester—Woodward grew up in a Rochester suburb, and Klos is represented by the Oxford Gallery  where I show my own work. I’ve written about Woodward already, and his drawings continue to strike me as mysteriously captivating in a way that echoes the greatness of early Jim Dine, yet he’s taken that influence as a springboard to launch you into a world all his own. Though he’s just getting started in his career, Klos has been collecting honors and awards at a regular pace. If you want to see work that’s classic, in the best possible way, you can get some idea of what he does at his website, but there’s no substitute for seeing the actual paintings. He’s an artist who not only lets you see what he saw, but also makes you marvel at how much inner life paint can embody, in and of itself, applied in what often seems risk-taking ways—though apparently not when he’s handling it.
Matt Woodward: The Tremendous Alone Elmhurst Art Museum, Sept. 16-Dec. 31.
Matt Klos: Rochefort-en-Terre, Plein Air Paintings Still Life Gallery, Ellicott City, MD, Sept. 17-Oct. 31.