Entangled Nature, Painting, and Being
APRIL MATISZ
ECU Award Recipient
Mackenzie Award in Painting – Winner
My MFA project highlights our deep entanglement with the natural environment. I paint colourful, abstracted imaginings of the natural world and sculpt feet out of clay.
In my practice I construct pluralistic narratives that consider human and non-human animals and imagine new relationships between people and the natural world. Throughout this project I explore ideas about human evolutionary history, phenomenology, ecology, and the climate crisis.
My paintings showcase a diversity of life which envision personal and imagined experiences, desires, and possible futures. These works underscore painting as a means to navigate and understand the world. The layers of muddled paint reflect a choreography of material and thought.
Sculpting feet from clay is a tender action. I conceptualize these feet more as children’s feet, which are the feet that I attend to in my life: trimming nails, washing, painting toes, bandaging, moisturizing. By molding Earth into something I can understand, I become more capable of addressing it. The fact that it is difficult to connect to a pile of dirt and easier to connect to a pile of dirt shaped like a child’s foot is just one of those human things. These feet recall our deep connection to the earth and the generations of ancestors that echo within us.
![](https://2024.theshow.ecuad.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/swell-1-1024x684.jpg)
Aghast and swell, oil on canvas, 61 x 91cm, 24 x 36″, 2024
![](https://2024.theshow.ecuad.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/tree-of-life-2-804x1024.jpg)
Tree of Life 2, oil on canvas, 112 x 87cm, 44 x 34.25″, 2024
![](https://2024.theshow.ecuad.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/swing-760x1024.jpg)
High Noon, oil on paper, 76 x 56cm, 30 x 22″, 2023
![](https://2024.theshow.ecuad.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/portrait-1.jpg)
Portrait, oil on paper, 61 x 65cm, 24 x 25″, 2023
![](https://2024.theshow.ecuad.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Spawning-thoughts-crop-1024x345.jpg)
Spawning Thoughts, oil on paper, 76 x 224cm, 30 x 88″, 2023
![](https://2024.theshow.ecuad.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/12-894x1024.jpg)
![](https://2024.theshow.ecuad.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/11-1018x1024.jpg)
detail from Spawning Thoughts
![](https://2024.theshow.ecuad.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/6-copy-3-759x1024.jpg)
Tower, oil on paper, 76 x 56cm, 30 x 22″, 2023
![](https://2024.theshow.ecuad.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/7-copy-2-1-683x1024.jpg)
![](https://2024.theshow.ecuad.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/9-copy-2-1024x683.jpg)
Ancestral Ghosts Echoing Everywhere, ceramics, size variable, 2023
![](https://2024.theshow.ecuad.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/leading-through-light-1024x786.jpg)
I Wish I Had, 48 x 64cm, 19.25 x 25″, 2024
![](https://2024.theshow.ecuad.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/20-copy-2-1024x646.jpg)
Rabbit for Dante, acrylic on YUPO paper, 56 x 112cm, 22 x 44″, 2021
![](https://2024.theshow.ecuad.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/runaway.jpg)
run away, oil on canvas, 77.5 x 66cm, 30.5 x 26″, 2024
![](https://2024.theshow.ecuad.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/22-copy-2-2-968x1024.jpg)
Stay with Me, acrylic and oil on YUPO, 158 x 150cm, 62.25 x 59.25″, 2023
![](https://2024.theshow.ecuad.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/hidden-dens-1-1024x943.jpg)
Hidden, oil on paper, 48 x 50cm, 19 x 19.75″, 2024
![](https://2024.theshow.ecuad.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/16-copy-3-1024x748.jpg)
Worm Bumping into Seed Pod, oil on paper, 56 x 76cm, 22 30″, 2023
![](https://2024.theshow.ecuad.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/18-copy-1-1024x748.jpg)
Vine Sensing, oil on paper, 56 x 76cm, 22 x 30″, 2023
![](https://2024.theshow.ecuad.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/boat-1-759x1024.jpg)
Carry, oil on paper, 76 x 56cm, 30 x 22″, 2024
![](https://2024.theshow.ecuad.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/detail-of-boat-768x1024.jpg)
![](https://2024.theshow.ecuad.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/detail-of-boat-2-768x1024.jpg)
detail from Carry