“Matt Sesow: Shock and Awe,” American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore

Full text

Text taken from the saved copy (where a page was only an image, it was machine-read and may contain errors — check against the page image before quoting). Copyright remains with the original publisher; kept for the historical record.

Archived copy for research · saved for the Matt Sesow Career Chronicle, history.sesow.com, October 11, 2026
Title: Shock and Awe Hits the American Visionary Art Museum
Publisher: BmoreArt, Baltimore (Brendan L. Smith)
Date: June 20, 2016
Original URL: https://bmoreart.com/2016/06/shock-and-awe-hits-the-american-visionary-art-museum.html
Why it matters: Review of the year-long AVAM solo. Text captured from the live page on October 11, 2026 (images not
included).
Copyright remains with the original publisher. Reproduced for reference and scholarship; contact sesow@sesow.com
with any request.

Shock and Awe Hits the American Visionary Art
Museum
Matt Sesow’s Solo Exhibit at AVAM Explores An Artist’s Experience with Tragedy and Loss
By Brendan L. Smith · BmoreArt · June 20, 2016
The long, improbable journey that led self-taught D.C. artist Matt Sesow to his first solo museum exhibition began
when he was 8 years old, playing on a rural grassy air strip beneath a darkening sky in the flatlands of Nebraska.
While playing a game called Spud with other children, Sesow threw a ball high in the air and reached upward to catch
it while a small plane swooped silently toward the earth behind him, practicing a manual landing with its engine turned
off. The 19-year-old novice pilot didn’t notice Sesow, and his upstretched left arm was instantly severed above the
elbow by the plane’s propeller.
The local newspaper article about the accident downplays its magnitude, stating that Sesow was listed in fair condition
at a nearby hospital. He underwent several painful surgeries but his left hand couldn’t be reattached, and his arm ends
at his left elbow. Decades later, after running track and playing high-school football, after winning a Mensa scholarship
and being crowned homecoming king at the University of Tulsa, and after moving to D.C. to work as an IBM software
engineer, Sesow tried painting on a lark to impress a woman at a party in 1994. Since then, he has ditched the IBM job
to create art fulltime, and his stark, brutal style has attracted a wide audience, leading to exhibitions across the United
States and Europe. His current solo exhibition called “Matt Sesow: Shock and Awe” features more than 150 paintings
in the American Visionary Art Museum’s third-floor gallery.
“This is probably the hardest show I’ve ever prepared for. I wanted it to be right,” Sesow told BmoreArt at a museum
reception on June 5. “I’m really honored to be here.”
Fallen Soldiers (Iraq War 2003)
Sesow has funneled much of his grief and anger over his traumatic accident into his work. His bug-eyed animals and
distorted human figures, often displaying large toothy grins or severed limbs, seem to revel in the grotesque, but a
closer look reveals a shy vulnerability and sly sense of humor. The vagaries of life in this workaday world are often
beset with tragedy but also by triumphs, both of the body and spirit.
Curated by AVAM founder and director Rebecca Hoffberger, Sesow’s exhibition features work of both a personal and
political persuasion, challenging the jingoism of U.S. foreign policy with 100 small portraits of soldiers killed during
the Iraq War. Sesow’s work, which invites comparisons to Jean-Michel Basquiat and Francis Bacon, features totem-like
imagery with recurring themes.
On a column in the gallery, Sesow explains the icons which repeatedly appear in his work as fully formed figures or
small chalkboard-like drawings floating in the periphery. Not surprisingly, an airplane represents evil as “THE GREAT
AMPUTATOR,” both from Sesow’s personal history but also as bombers raining violence from the skies. A bottle with
three X’s is “the source of inspiration but also maybe a place to pain.” A large scar represents one of his many

surgeries, while a bunny reveals his gentle nature. A skeletal man wearing a top hat with a dollar sign has money on his
mind and is “often the gallery manager.”
Although he works with galleries, Sesow sells much of his artwork directly to buyers through social media and visits to
the tiny condo he converted into a studio by ripping out the oven and dishwasher, building a loft for his bed to make
room for more canvases. He splits his time there and at the condominium/studio of his wife Dana Ellyn, a fellow artist
with whom he often collaborates with in joint exhibitions.
Two Halves of “Two Sides to Every Story”
One of Sesow’s most compelling works created for the AVAM show hangs on wires between two pillars, revealing
paintings on both sides of the canvas. Called “Two Sides to Every Story,” one side features an angel pointing skyward
and pulling the hand of a frightened, naked boy with a severed hand, offering the comfort of death over the struggles of
life. A small plane floats in the sky overhead while a wind sock flutters in the distance. On the other side of the canvas,
Sesow’s life unfolds in 56 vignettes representing both monumental and trivial chapters. The saga starts with an angry,
drooling man crouched in front of a computer and ends with a less angry man painting a self-portrait.
“Matt Sesow: Shock and Awe” will be on display at the American Visionary Art Museum until June 4, 2017.
Brendan L. Smith is a freelance journalist, mixed-media artist, and father of two rambunctious boys in Washington,
D.C.

Full text

Text taken from the saved copy (where a page was only an image, it was machine-read and may contain errors — check against the page image before quoting). Copyright remains with the original publisher; kept for the historical record.

Archived copy for research · saved for the Matt Sesow Career Chronicle, history.sesow.com, October 11, 2026
Title: Matt Sesow: Shock and Awe
Publisher: American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore
Date: Exhibition page (retrieved October 11, 2026)
Original URL: https://www.avam.org/exhibitions/past/matt-sesow%3A-shock-and-awe
Why it matters: The museum's own record of his year-long solo in the third-floor gallery of the Zanvyl A. Krieger Main
Building.
Copyright remains with the original publisher. Reproduced for reference and scholarship; contact sesow@sesow.com
with any request.

Matt Sesow: Shock and Awe

May 27, 2016 - May 28, 2017
3rd floor gallery, Zanvyl A. Krieger Main Building

Image Gallery
"Identical Twins" by Matt Sesow
2016. Oil and acrylic on canvas. Gift of the artist.
press to zoom
"A Choice" by Matt Sesow
2016. Oil on canvas. Gift of the artist.
press to zoom
"Guardian Angel" by Matt Sesow
2016. Acrylic and oil on canvas. Gift of the artist.
press to zoom
press to zoom
press to zoom
press to zoom
1/1

About the Exhibition
"I have been bent and broken, but – I hope – into a better shape." –Charles Dickens
AVAM is thrilled to announce an all-new original art exhibition, MATT SESOW: Shock and Awe. Washington, D.C.based self-taught artist Matt Sesow's "raw, visceral, good to the bone" paintings will be displayed in the museum's third
floor gallery of its Zanvyl A. Krieger Main Building beginning Memorial Day Weekend 2016 (Friday, May 27, 2016)
and remain on view thru May 28, 2017. Among the original 150 plus works on display, visitors will witness Sesow's
salute to the first 100 American soldiers killed in the Iraq War, his fantastical depictions of animals and birds,
personalized tributes to great humanitarians, his own autobiographical paintings, and an illustrated "Key" to
understanding the artist's repeated singular language icons. Curated by museum Founder and Director, Rebecca Alban
Hoffberger, this will be the first exclusive showing of Sesow's work at AVAM.

our generous sponsors

More past exhibitions
Oct. 12, 2024 – Aug. 31, 2025

Good Sports: The Wisdom & Fun of Fair Play
Oct. 8, 2022 - Sep. 3, 2023

ABUNDANCE: Too Much, Too Little, Just Right
Oct. 7, 2023 - Sep. 1, 2024

If You Build It, They Will Come
Nov. 3, 2021 - Nov. 21, 2021

John Oliver's Last Week Tonight’s Gallery for Cultural Enrichment
Jul. 2, 2023 - Jun. 30, 2025

The Secret Within: The Art of Judith Scott
Oct. 9, 2021 - Sep. 4, 2022

Healing and the Art of Compassion (and the Lack Thereof!)