20th Century Master. The What.

It might just look like a chair...but what it's about is so much more...

Back in the day, I was introduced to an artist named Henri Matisse and my world changed forever. No, I didn't have some out-of-body, travel-through-time experience where Matisse told me to become an artist with a jovial chuckle and twinkle in his eye...but I'd simply never seen work like his before. It might not have been as weird, conceptual, surreal, or obvious as some of the other modern masters, but his color, subjects, fantasy and depth (or lack-there-of) really captivated me...

At some point he said that art should be "like a comfortable armchair" and for the first few years of my art-making, I was completely fine with that. I worked on composition and color, copying his work, imitating his work and, ultimately, getting into college with a number of pieces that could have been right out of my Taschen "Henri Matisse" coffee table book.

but things change.

As I got older, I got tired of the Odalisques and the still lifes. I still adore the work, don't get me wrong, he's still in my top 3 favorites, but I felt like my subject matter was shallow...like i was regurgitating not only what I had already done, but what other, better artists had already done before me. My armchair, while comfy, was getting ragged and saggy. It's patterns had faded...It's charm offset by the slight smell of mold...

20th Century Master. is a portrait of Henri Matisse, a portrait of changing artistic direction and a question of changing times. It's not to say that his idea, that art should be like a comfortable armchair, or his art is obsolete...but there is a question about it...

Does his philosophy still work in the art world of today or is Henri Matisse, his idea and his art truly 20th Century?

We still adore him and his work, but are we moving on? Have we learned what we can? Is it time to get rid of that armchair?