Article in "Artesian" Magazine

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.

116126,7.03 AM Article written by Matt Sesow for Artesian Magazine, 2003 ***

this page:

Article written by Matt Sesow for Artesian Magazine

2003

front and back of promotional postcard:
Wino) Nas ees)

MES

2

batps:/ www sesow.comvartesian him

uw

[page 1 machine-read (OCR) from the image]

116126,7.03 AM

e Call me Whatever you
Want - Jam Matt Sesow

z
3

jon, My summer vacation

by Matt Sesow

‘THE ACCIDENT
he first thing | remember was the feeling of know-
ing had done something monumental, maybe
even miraculous. it was as if | had watched every-
thing unfold, made a calculated decision to bring
‘me to this moment, But it was the look on my
parents’ faces, their red eyes, the forced smiles, the impending
truth about to be revealed to me that was the beginning of this
strange journey ... | was an eight-year-old boy lying in a
hospital bed in Lincoln, Nebraska; | was a boy that had just
‘survived being hit by a landing airplane,

From my viewpoint, everything was fing. | had survived the
plane's propelier striking the arm that fed blood to my
dominant left hand, | had survived being dragged over 100
yards down a grassy runway in front of my playmates and
siblings, who had come together that summer evening in
1974 for a friendly game of ball-tossing called "SPUD’. | had
survived the stillness on the runway as neighbors removed
my shoes and used their laces to apply a tourniquet as | lay
motionless and bleeding. Yes, everything seemed just as it
should be, as | lay in that hospital bed. Although | felt bit
‘groggy from the six-hour operation to reattach the arm, |
figured I'd soon be back out on the cool grass on warm
‘summer evenings throwing balls and running from propellers.

batps:/ www sesow.comvartesian him

‘

Article written by Matt Sesow for Artesian Magazine, 2003 ***

But wait | followed the eyes of my parents and noticed
‘were no longer looking at my face, but instead at my very s
‘arm which was draped in a white yellow-stained sheet.

a doctor came in and removed the sheet. When my eyes:
joined those of my bedside visitors | felt as if | was looking
someone else's body, You see, the arm that had 50

‘guided blood to my left hand had just suffered a bit of trauma
we had been separated, briefly, on that grassy runway. And
despite the best efforts of a terific team of doctors, some of
whom had performed similar procedures in the Vietnam War,
had not been possible to clear and reconnect a perfect path
from my heart to the left hand. My left hand was now
blackish wrinkled cold appendage. | remember being able to.
‘move the fingers ever so slightly. The next thing the doctor
‘said was something to the eflect, “Matt we need to remove
your hand... my response, without hesitation, was ‘yes of

‘THE INFLUENCES

Growing up in Lincoln, Nebraska, | was lucky to live in a
‘college town, damn lucky. | had been exposed to the likes of
Noam Chomsky, Raw Magazine’ (Art Spiegelman), college
radio, and since | looked old’. I could get into the bars
(passing as 18) to see live music. It goes without saying that |
‘was especially lucky to be raised by ultra-supportive parents;
however, it was the influences | picked up from feeling a
‘connection to the underground political and musical passion of
the early 80's that is my bridge from personal experience to
art

"Raw Magazine’, a New York City art-school-inspired publication
published ‘wo to four times a year’ was the first and greatest
influence on my appreciation for ‘meaningful ar’. | used to pick
it up when | was in junior high school (1981) at a record store
near the University of Nebraska campus. From that | was
introduced to Charles Buns, Sue Coe, Mark Beyer, and Gary
Panter, Of course Art Spiegelman, of ‘Maus’ fame, was the
editor and somehow must have influenced my use of icons’ to
symbolize everything from trauma, ignorance, desire, faith,
‘consumption and innocence.

(On the radio in Lincoln we had KZUM, an independent volunteer-
‘un station, that featured a call-in show by a local anarchist. It
‘was the Reagan years in Lincoln and most of the callers that
‘got through would poke fun at the host's wildly foreign ideas,

‘And most of the time he didn't seem to realize they were trying

to be funny, at his expense... he'd faithfully labor through every

“I think we should nuke Russia’ call and explain why nukes

‘were bad (in great detail) and how the labors of the proletariat
class keep the rich in place at the expense of the poor.

Listening to the anarchist tak was entertaining, and probably

the reason | started to pick up and read Noam Chomsky. ]
‘Chomsky was, and cantinues to be, ‘the voice of reason and
fact’ amongst the horrors of wars and the media's Orwellian
depiction of reality. | don't want to be pinned to the ideas of any
Cone political intellect, but let's just agree that trauma is suffered
Con both ends of an M-16 rifle and original art should be afford-
able to everybody, regardless of economic class,

[page 2 machine-read (OCR) from the image]

116126,7.03 AM

batps:/ www sesow.comvartesian him

Article written by Matt Sesow for Artesian Magazine, 2003 ***

www.artesian-arts.org
us

37

[page 3 machine-read (OCR) from the image]

116126,7.03 AM

KZUM radio also played punk rock from Berkeley, California
(Maximum RockNRoll) on Thursday nights when I was a kid.
Itwas insane music back in the early 80's and was just about
as foreign as a Nebraskan anarchist. | suppose the energy
{and alienation of socialism, punk rock, and even an anarchist,
fed into my subconscious desire to belong to something
‘different’. Something that was different, and not related to
physical disability. Punk rock culture flourished on the idea of
diy. (‘do it yourself), be yourself, and accept everybody as
‘an equal ... Back then, it seemed that the smart kids were the
‘punks’. Bands and fans would book shows, create magazines,
‘and produce fantastically creative flyers to advertise shows. All
‘outside’ the creative and economic influence of the music
industry. The imagery from the flyers, the collage-lke rawness,
and politically horrific, sometimes humorous imagery continues
to influence many of my paintings. | feel that much of what | do
today, from maintaining my own webpage, my pricing, to
dealing with galleries and buyers one-on-one was inspired by
the genius of the “do it yourself” culture of punk rock

‘So my primary education in Lincoln was fruitful... And then it
was off to college in Oklahoma. It was time to go it alone, with
a nice scholarship from the Mensa society (for a paper | wrote
questioning the ethics of nuclear arms). Life at the university
was ecstasy. It was there that | was elected homecoming king,
student senator, frat boy, volunteered and got fired for playing
punk music at a radio station, plastered the campus with my
flyers, and ran amok with alcohol, Yes, and | got a Bachelor of
‘Science in computer engineering, made the dean's list, and
landed my first job out of college with IBM in Washington, OC.
in 1988,

TTHE PAINTBRUSH
| started painting about nine years ago in 1993 as a way to be
accepted by a group of artist friends and my new gilfriend,
now ex-wife. We all lived in Washington, DC and | was still
working at IBM as a computer professional. They lived in an

uitra-hip Mount Pleasant neighborhood group-house, and |
resided blissfully alone, in
a small apartment with a
neurotic cat named Rudy.

At one of the first “datos”
| attended at the group
house, an art-schoo!
graduatehousemate of
my ex-wife's brought out
some of her schoo!
supplies to a large dining
room table and suggest-
ed we all paint some-
thing. Hoping to impress
the group, and not want-
ing to reveal that my true
desire that evening had
othing to do with paint-
ing, | said “sure, | paint

Hm wat os innocent A it of
portrait thal, even tough may pant
‘Shings that are critical of thingh all the time’. That was a

tf 50 innocent and perfect myself. lig, | had never painted
per-se. Sure, | had doodied and sketched and even did a
series of pen-drawn free comic books in elementary school
with my best friend Jack (we used to place them amongst the
‘other books in the school's library and see if anybody took
them ... nobody noticed). But this night was the first time I'd be
using color and hearing funny names like gouache paint,
Craypas crayons, and Bristol paper,

That night was followed by several blurry nights. Several
nights of several red paintings by Matt Sesow. Those ‘group-
house paintings’ hung there. for years, the paintings became

bnaps:/ww sesow-con/artesian htm

Article written by Matt Sesow for Artesian Magazine, 2003 ***

times lasting into the next day... And I'd go to work the next
day at IBM barely able to recount the output from the previous,
night. Yes, oftentimes it was just me at the table painting after
everybody else in the group-house had long retired, and they
were tired, of painting. | couldn't get enough, | was getting
‘something out of my system it seemed.

Looking back on those paintings, it is obvious to me that | was.
healing. | was taking about 20 years of bottled-up emotion
from my childhood trauma and putting it on paper and canvas.
Most of the figures | drew and represented were in various
‘stages of amputation and uncertainty. There was lots of red
and lots of black sharp lines and lots of emotion. The approving
reaction | got from many of the people that saw the work | felt
was in jest and sympathy, | never believed when anyone said
they ‘liked’ what I did, how could they? To me, the paintings
were funny, glorified my heroes, and disgraced my enemies ...
| didn’t know much about art, but | knew | liked powerful and
shocking imagery. My imagery and influence comes from a lot
of places, not just childhood trauma.

‘THE ENVIRONMENT

Most of the work | create today is done on the floor and on
easels in my 600 square foot apartment in Washington, DC.
My walls are plastered up to three deep with paintings from.
the last nine years. The only framed piece is my college
diploma. The only other artist hanging on the wall of 300+
works is @ small piece by Sue Coe, whom | credit as being my
favorite artist.

The Solomon isiands (with the Peace Corps), Bulgaria (with
‘Gookcorps’), China and Singapore (for my honeymoon),
Mexico, and Belize are some of the more exotic places | have
Created paintings. I've found that incorporating the imagery
from the people of the towns | paint in is a compelling way to
document my travels and experiences. | used Cyrilic wording
‘and signed my paintings in Cyrilic while in Bulgaria. | used
English pidgin tities for my Solomon island works and Chinese
watercolors and paper in the Guangdong Province. Obviously,
the imagery of the nation’s capital here in DC is prevalent in
several of my recent works.

‘THE EMOTION
When people try to describe my paintings, they oftentimes use
words like ‘raw’, ‘angry’, ‘energetic’. or ‘expressive’. OK, but
here’s what they really are: ‘A failure’. | don't feel that any
painting I've done has ever been successful. I've just started,
and I'm not good enough to tackle what | want to express yel.
have a secret list of paintings that | will attempt when | feel
I'm ready. For now, | take the bus down to the National
Gallery of Art, or the Hishhorn museum here in Washington,
DC to see my heroes like De Kooning, Bacon, Van Gogh, the
very old Dutch and German religious work, Pollock, or
occasionally Basquiat is in town ... that’s who | want to hang
with. | will be as good as or better than they are someday ...
but it's too early for that. Give me a few more years please.

THE END

So in conclusion, | see my current body of over 3500 paintings
as ‘studies’ or training. | am not just a ‘self taught’ artist, but |
am a ‘self teaching’ artist. | am growing, | am accessible, |
have an education. | am not just an outsider, but I've lived in
places you'll never go. | am not just folk, but I've dabbled with
the bourgeois. | am not just visionary, but I'l paint one thousand
Buddha if | feel like it.

Call me whatever you want, | am Matt Sesow.
OVERLEAF: Helibound. By Matt Sesow.

an

[page 4 machine-read (OCR) from the image]

7/6/26, 7:03 AM

Article written by Matt Sesow for Artesian Magazine, 2003 ***

"Matt Sesow’s Artist Statement (2002)"

THE ACCIDENT
The first thing I remember was the feeling of knowing I had done something monumental, maybe even miraculous. It was as if I had watched
everything unfold, made a calculated decision to bring me to this moment. But it was the look on my parent’s faces, their red eyes, the forced
smiles, the impending truth about to be revealed to me that was the beginning of this strange journey... I was an eight-year-old boy lying in a
hospital bed in Lincoln, Nebraska, I was a boy that had just survived being hit by a landing airplane.
From my viewpoint, everything was fine, I had survived the plane’s propeller striking the arm that fed blood to my dominant left hand. I had
survived being drug over 100 yards down a grassy runway in front of my playmates and siblings whom had come together that summer
evening in 1974 for a friendly game of ball-tossing called ‘SPUD’. I had survived the stillness on the runway as neighbors removed my shoes
and used its laces to apply a tourniquet as I bled motionless. Yes, everything seemed just as it should as I lay in that hospital bed. Although I
felt a bit groggy from the six-hour operation to reattach the arm, I figured I’d soon be back out on the cool grass on warm summer evenings
throwing balls and running from propellers.
But wait. I followed the eyes of my parents and noticed they were no longer looking at my face, but instead at my very sore arm draped in a
white yellow-stained sheet. Soon a doctor came in and removed that sheet. It was as if I was looking at somebody else’s body when my eyes
joined those of my bedside visitors. You see, the arm of mine that had so faithfully guided blood to my left hand had just suffered a bit of

https://www.sesow.com/artesian.htm

5/7

7/6/26, 7:03 AM

Article written by Matt Sesow for Artesian Magazine, 2003 ***

trauma... we had been separated, briefly, on that grassy runway. And despite the best efforts of a terrific team of doctors, some, whom had
performed ‘similar procedures’ in the Vietnam War, were unable to clear and reconnect a perfect path from my heart to the left hand. My left
hand was now a purple-blackish wrinkled cold appendage. I remember being able to move the fingers ever so slightly. The next thing the
doctor said was something to the effect, ‘Matt we need to remove your hand’.... my response, without hesitation, was ‘yes of course, that is
fine with me’. Everything was going perfectly as planned. And so my fantastic journey begins.
THE INFLUENCES
Growing up in Lincoln, Nebraska, I was lucky to live in a college town, damn lucky. I had been exposed to the likes of Noam Chomsky, ‘Raw
Magazine’ (Art Spiegelman), college radio, and since I ‘looked old’, I could get into the bars (passing as 18) to see live music. It goes without
saying that I was especially lucky to be raised by ultra-supportive parents; however, it was the influences I picked up from feeling a connection
to the underground political and musical passion of the early 80’s that is my bridge from personal experience to art.
"Raw Magazine", a New York City art-school-inspired publication published ‘two to four times a year’ was the first and greatest influence on my
appreciation for ‘meaningful art’. I used to pick it up when I was in junior high school (1981) at a record store near the University of Nebraska
campus. From that I was introduced to Charles Burns, Sue Coe, Mark Beyer, and Gary Panter. Of course Art Spiegelman, of ‘Maus’ fame, was
the editor and somehow must have influenced my use of ‘icons’ to symbolize everything from trauma, ignorance, desire, faith, consumption
and innocence.
On the radio in Lincoln we had KZUM, an independent volunteer-run station, that featured a call-in show by a local anarchist. It was the
Reagan years in Lincoln and most of the callers that got through would poke fun at the host’s wildly foreign ideas. And most of the time he
didn’t seem to realize they were trying to be funny, at his expense... he’d faithfully labor through every ‘I think we should nuke Russia’ call and
explain why nukes were bad (in great detail) and how the labors of the proletariat class keep the rich in place at the expense of the poor.
Listening to the anarchist talk was entertaining, and probably the reason I started to pick up and read Noam Chomsky. Chomsky was, and
continues to be, ‘the voice of reason and fact’ amongst the horrors of wars and the media’s Orwellian depiction of reality. I don’t want to be
pinned to the ideas of any one political intellect, but let’s just agree that trauma is suffered on both ends of an M-16 rifle and original art
should be affordable to everybody, regardless of economic class.
KZUM radio also played punk rock from Berkley, California (Maximum RockNRoll) on Thursday nights when I was a kid. It was insane music
back in the early 80’s and was just about as foreign as a Nebraskan anarchist. I suppose the energy and alienation of socialism, punk rock, and
even an anarchist, fed into my subconscious desire to belong to something ‘different’. Something that was different, and not related to physical
disability. Punk rock culture flourished on the idea of d.i.y. ("do it yourself"), be yourself, and accept everybody as an equal... Back then, it
seemed that the smart kids were the ‘punks’. Bands and fans would book shows, create magazines, and produce fantastically creative flyers to
advertise shows. All ‘outside’ the creative and economic influence of the music industry. The imagery from the flyers , the collage-like rawness,
and politically horrific, sometimes humorous imagery continues to influence many of my paintings. I feel that much of what I do today, from
maintaining my own webpage, my pricing, to dealing with galleries and buyers one-on-one was inspired from the genius of the "do it yourself"
culture of punk rock.
So my primary education in Lincoln was fruitful... And then it was off to college in Oklahoma. It was time to go it alone, with a nice scholarship
from the Mensa society (for a paper I wrote questioning the ethics of nuclear arms). Life at the university was ecstasy. It was there that I was
elected homecoming king, student senator, frat boy, volunteered at and got fired for playing punk music at a radio station, plastered the
campus with my flyers, and ran amok with alcohol. Yes, and I got a Bachelor of Science in computer engineering, made the dean’s list, and
landed my first job out of college with IBM in Washington, DC in 1988.
THE PAINTBRUSH
I started painting about nine years ago in 1993 as a way to be accepted by a group of artist friends and my new girlfriend, now ex-wife. We all
lived in Washington, DC and I was still working at IBM as a computer professional. They lived in an ultra-hip Mount Pleasant neighborhood
group-house, and I resided blissfully alone, in a small apartment with a neurotic cat named Rudy.
At one of the first "dates" I attended at the group house, an art-school graduate/housemate of my ex-wife’s brought out some of her school
supplies to a large dining room table and suggested we all paint something. Hoping to impress the group, and not wanting to reveal that my
true desire that evening had nothing to do with painting, I said ‘sure, I paint all the time’. That was a lie, I had never painted per-se. Sure, I
had doodled and sketched and even did a series of pen-drawn free comic books in elementary school with my best friend Jack (we used to
place them amongst the other books in the school’s library and see if anybody took them ... nobody noticed). But this night was the first time
I’d be using color and hearing funny names like gouache paint, Craypas crayons, and Bristol paper.
That night was followed by several blurry nights. Several nights of several red paintings by Matt Sesow.
Those ‘group-house paintings’ hung there for years, the paintings became wallpaper, numbering over 100. The nights were long, oftentimes
lasting into the next day... And I’d go to work the next day at IBM barely able to recount the output from the previous night. Yes, oftentimes it
was just me at the table painting after everybody else in the group-house had long retired, and they were tired, of painting. I couldn’t get
enough, I was getting something out of my system it seemed.
Looking back on those paintings, it is obvious to me that I was healing. I was taking about 20 years of bottled-up emotion from my childhood
trauma and putting it on paper and canvas. Most of the figures I drew and represented were in various stages of amputation and uncertainty.
There was lots of red and lots of black sharp lines and lots of emotion. The approving reaction I got from many of the people that saw the work
I felt was in jest and sympathy. I never believed when anyone said they ‘liked’ what I did, how could they? To me, the paintings were funny,
glorified my heroes, and disgraced my enemies ... I didn’t know much about art, but I knew I liked powerful and shocking imagery. My imagery
and influence comes from a lot of places, not just childhood trauma.
THE ENVIRONMENT
Most of the work I create today is done on the floor and on easels from my 600 square foot apartment in Washington, DC. My walls are
plastered up to three deep with paintings from the last nine years. The only framed piece is my college diploma. The only other artist hanging
on the wall of 300+ works is a small piece by Sue Coe, whom I credit as being my favorite artist.

https://www.sesow.com/artesian.htm

6/7

7/6/26, 7:03 AM

Article written by Matt Sesow for Artesian Magazine, 2003 ***

The Solomon Islands (with the Peace Corps), Bulgaria (with ‘Geekcorps’), China and Singapore (for my honeymoon), Mexico, and Belize are
some of the more exotic places I have created paintings. I’ve found that incorporating the imagery from the people of the towns I paint in is a
compelling way to document my travels and experiences. I used Cyrillic wording and signed my paintings in Cyrillic while in Bulgaria. I used
English pidgin titles for my Solomon Island works and Chinese watercolors and paper in the Guangdong Province. Obviously, the imagery of the
nation’s capital here in DC is prevalent in several of my recent works.

THE EMOTION
When people try to describe my paintings, they oftentimes use words like ‘raw’, ‘angry’, ‘energetic’, or ‘expressive’. OK, but here’s what they
really are: ‘A failure’. I don’t feel that any painting I’ve done has ever been successful. I’ve just started, and I’m not good enough to tackle
what I want to express yet. I have a secret list of paintings that I will attempt when I feel I’m ready. For now, I take the bus down to the
National Gallery of Art, or the Hishhorn museum here in Washington, DC to see my heroes like DeKooning, Bacon, VanGogh, the very old Dutch
and German religious work, Pollock, or occasionally Basquiat is in town... that’s who I want to hang with. I will be as good as or better than
they are someday.... but it’s too early for that. Give me a few more years please.

THE END
So in conclusion, I see my current body of over 3500 paintings as ‘studies’ or training. I am not just a ‘self taught’ artist, but I am a ‘self
teaching’ artist. I am growing, I am accessible, I have an education. I am not just an outsider, but I’ve lived in places you’ll never go. I am not
just folk, but I’ve dabbled with the bourgeois. I am not just visionary, but I’ll paint one thousand Buddha if I feel like it.
Call me whatever you want, I am Matt Sesow.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE PAINTINGS...

https://www.sesow.com/artesian.htm

7/7