Matt Killen

Matt Killen received a BFA from Concordia University and an MFA in visual arts from l’Université du Québec à Montréal. He is a founding member of the Centre de recherche urbaine de Montréal, a Montreal-based artist collective and publisher. In 2008, he was featured in the Magenta Foundation’s publication, Carte Blanche Vol. 2: Painting. His work has been presented in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and Pittsburgh. Describing his painting practice as an elaboration on an “aesthetic of entropy,” Killen’s work explores themes of corrosion, erosion, deterioration, and other forms of destruction, particularly through representation of urban space in a state of decay and recently in “found still lifes” such as piles of demolition/renovation detritus. Creating complex compositions that challenge the viewer’s perspective, his objective is to create contrasts between form and content, flatness and painterliness, while still maintaining compositional and thematic cohesion.