ARTIST FEATURE - MATT RIX
- sixteen online
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
ARTIST | FEATURE
MATT RIX
Matt Rix is an emerging folk artist, a painter interested in traditional art, working from his home in rural Denbighshire. He exemplifies the naive, folk art style, evoking feelings of nostalgia and tradition through a unique, contemporary practice. Embracing sustainability through his practice, Matt focuses on reusing and reclaiming materials; creating charmingly characterful works out of unwanted household paints, recovered boards or canvases, and found frames.
Employing limited muted colour palettes and natural tones, Matt's works have a tranquil feeling, an innate calm nostalgia, a look of simplicity which belies his sense of narrative and story. With a very purposeful use of colour and line, his pieces look entirely matt and flattened, a naive style with a depth created by absolutely oozing character. In places, he leaves the wood or canvas texture to come through the paint, creating marks or adding subtleties to areas of flat colour.
In his depictions of characters or things, he reduces shape and line down to their simplest forms, using limited marks full of suggestion. Yet he adds in delightful odd details like the textures of feathers or the tag on a pigeon's ankle in "Champion", these moments are what give his work its charming personality and invites the viewer to true connection.
Complementing the narrative style of his work, Matt beautifully utilises titles for his pieces, swinging between imaginative lyricisms like "Silent Coexistence" to perfect curt descriptions like "Grey Whale. Blue Sea. Pink Sky". While an artwork doesn't always need a title, these lovely, thought-out, quirky sidekicks play into the charm and delight Matt curates in all his work.
We were really happy to welcome Matt as one of the selected artists for Sixteen Gallery's first-ever Open Call Exhibition in 2025, and have enjoyed having his piece "Champion" in the gallery, kicking off this year. Discover more of his work or contact him over on his profile, or find him on his very nicely curated Instagram to get hold of an artwork!
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