Paradise (Blue Mountain), Contemporary Landscape Painting With Text by Matt Higgins

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This is the fourth and most ambitious Paradise painting in this series. The series began in 2022 and has continued … Read more This is the fourth and most ambitious Paradise painting in this series. The series began in 2022 and has continued to evolve. This new oil painting carries a heightened sense of depth and material presence, offering a particularly focused expression of the series.

These paintings stage paradise as both image and illusion—something declared as much as it is depicted. The repeated presence of the word “PARADISE,” rendered in urgent, almost naive lettering, functions less as a description and more as a proposition: a promise that feels insistent, even doubtful. The landscapes beneath—palm trees, distant mountains, dark water, and moonlit skies—evoke the familiar language of escape, recalling tourist imagery and inherited visions of Eden. Yet their construction resists stillness or perfection.

Like a vacation, paradise is presented as a constructed elsewhere, a place we project onto in order to momentarily step outside of time. But the paintings insist that time does not disappear. Mortality remains embedded within the image, quietly present even in the most vibrant and idyllic scenes. The palm tree leans, the horizon fractures, the darkness presses in.

The painting’s palette is striking—neon brights against deep blacks—creating a tension between beauty and unease. While the word “paradise” suggests tranquility, the restless brushstrokes and electric colors hint at something more complex: a place that is vibrant and alive, but not entirely serene. The overall effect is both inviting and slightly disorienting, as if capturing not a literal landscape, but the heightened, emotional memory of one.

Note: This painting can be shipped rolled in a tube or on stretcher bars since it is quite large.

Matt Higgins b. 1987 is both an artist and an art professor based in Philadelphia, PA. He engages in a consistent studio practice, with a primary focus on painting across various bodies of work. He received his BFA from West Chester University in 2011 and his MFA from The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2017. As well as maintaining a regular studio practice, he teaches at a few schools in the area including Drexel University, Delaware County Community College and Moore College of Art and Design. His art is included in numerous private collections and has been featured in a diverse range of interior design projects, spanning residential properties, corporations, and hotels. Both his home and studio are located in the Fishtown neighborhood of Philadelphia, where he lives with his wife and two kids. See less