Matthew Smallen is native to the Portland Oregon area. Like many children, Matthew started drawing when he was very young. His mother kept him supplied with paper, crayons, and pencils initially because it kept him occupied for unusually long periods of time. Soon she was organizing files of the continuous stream of drawings, such as dinosaurs, trains, frogs, Star Wars guys, whatever he was reading up on at the time. He kept drawing, enjoying the challenges of increasingly complex, never ending subject matter the world supplied.

After these early years of honing his draftsmanship skills, Matt started serious oil painting when he was 16. Upon graduating from Lake Oswego High School, he went on to Pacific Northwest College of Art. He finished the first term of his sophomore year before his financing dried up and he had to drop out.

Matt got a regular job and continued painting with oils on his own at home. His focus was on natural realistic still life, working from direct observation of objects he arranged in studio. He studied color theory and adapted the technique of mixing his entire pallet exclusively from the true primary colors of cyan, magenta, and yellow. These three and white are the only colors he has used since about 2002. Like the French Impressionists, Matt swore off black pigment. But unlike those plein air painters of light, he worked indoors in the shadows of his studio with a light on the subject and a light on the canvas in an otherwise dark room.

As life so often goes, Matt married, bought a house, had a child, got divorced, entered midlife crisis, went to therapy, and bought an impractical fast two-door car. Finally in 2016 Matt quit his day job to dive head first into his long-awaited career as a full time studio painter. He is now the sole proprietor of Smallen Studios, his online gallery.

Curriculum Vitae

Education

Pacific Northwest College of Art – fine arts major

 Sep 1995 — Dec 1996

Life drawing, painting (gouache, acrylic), sculpture (ceramic, figure, wood, found object additive), printmaking (etching, woodcut, silkscreen), photography, Adobe Photoshop, graphic design, pre- and post-war modern art history

GPA 3.5

Lake Oswego High School - Sr. Class Medallion Art Award 

Professional Experience

Owner, sole proprietor – Smallen Studios                                                                             Jan 2017 – present

·         Design, photograph, and administrate all aspects of the website smallenstudios.com

·         Develop and administer advertising campaign via social media

·         All business administration of open studio sales and customer relations

Studio artist - painter                                                                                                                  1998 - present

Exhibitions

·         2017 international exhibition, finalist, 13th annual Art Kudos International Juried Art Competition & Exhibition

     Juror: Mike Calway-Fagen

·         2017 group exhibition, Oregon, Lake Oswego Festival of the Arts

·         2017  solo exhibition, Portland, Oregon, Mazzetti office, World Trade Center

·         2012  solo exhibition, Tualatin, Oregon Legacy Meridian Park Medical Center

·         2004  group exhibition, Oregon, Lake Oswego Festival of the Arts

·         1993 group exhibition, Oregon, Lake Oswego Festival of the Arts

·         1992 group exhibition, Oregon, Lake Oswego Public Library

Collections

·         Pacific Northwest College of Art collection, Portland, OR

·         Private collection, Lake Oswego, OR

·         Private collection, Beaverton, OR

·         Private collection, Portland, OR

·         Private collection, Ft Lauderdale, FL

·         Private collection, Tualatin, OR