Impressionist Acrylic on Canvas Original Water Lily Artwork by Matthew Brinston

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The image shows an impressionistic painting of a water lily pond with numerous green lily pads scattered across a textured … Read more The image shows an impressionistic painting of a water lily pond with numerous green lily pads scattered across a textured blue, white, and pink water surface, signed "Brinston" in the upper left corner. The impressionistic style featuring visible brushstrokes and a soft pastel and cool-toned palette.

About Matthew Brinston:
When death leads to life, art is inevitable. And art, as creation, is a reflection of its creator. Brinston and his work consistently grapple with the revolution of death and life and death again. The cacophonous symphony of color and shape, rhythm and structure that compose his work is all at once chaotic and calm. Just as the artist himself is an amalgam of mania and peace. The composition of art and artist is indistinguishable… just as his art is an extension of himself, the artist has become an extension of his art. For the artist, art is valuable in its making life worth living. Art has given him purpose and meaning, the people he loves, the places he’s been, literal survival, a future. Art is everything. And now with everything, the artist seeks to share this existential gift through collaboration and demonstration. Impact the world through connection. Inform himself and those around him through interaction. Art is the universal teacher. And the artist’s goal is to help people find little bits of themselves through personal synergy with the art. The artist’s path from life to death and back to life again has not been without pain. But the vision of Christ plus the inevitable clarity of death have afforded him balance amidst chaos and a wealth of generosity through selfless invention. The artist creates not for glory, fame or control… but because he is an artist. And an artist creates.

Matthew Brinston’s journey as an artist is one irrevocably marked by trauma and resurrection. At age 20, Matthew died at Baylor Hospital, across the street from where he now lives and only blocks from the Waas Gallery where he now works. After intensive brain surgery, Matthew’s heart stopped beating, and he was declared legally dead from injuries sustained in a horrific motorcycle crash. He’s unsure exactly how long he was dead. But it was long enough for him to have a transformative, supernatural experience wherein he was divinely implored to use his art for good. And on the other side of this experience, Matthew immediately shifted his focus from music (his former band, Fever Dreamer, was just taking off at the time of the accident) to life as a full-time artist. “I started painting to get my mind off stuff I was going through, while I was recovering from the accident,” he says. And then again, as if by divine influence, he was reminded of his newfound calling. “My brother-in-law had asked this one guy to pray for me while I was in the hospital. He didn’t know me, but then one day he came back and said, ‘That guy you asked me to pray for? He’s gonna influence a lot of people with his artwork.’ And it was just really weird, and it all clicked. And then about a year later, people started asking me to show stuff in their galleries. And it just seemed like I was supposed to do that and focus on that.”

Long before the accident, Matthew had begun pursuing art… just perhaps not with the same fervor or motivation. When he was in high school, an art teacher saw something in his work and compelled him to start turning his drawings into paintings. “And she made me like it,” he said. “She just never gave up on me all those years I was in high school.” And all her pushing eventually paid off as Matthew came to realize that art gave him a voice. “It became a cool way to get stuff out and say something by creating,” he said. “It always came easy to make stuff look good visually. At least stuff I thought was important.” He then went on to pursue a degree in art from Dallas Baptist University. So really, the accident merely altered Matthew’s artistic inspiration. His work is now often influenced by his growing faith and by the people and experiences that surround him. “I don’t know why, people tend to open up to me and tell me their stories,” he says. And this has led him to create an entire new series, I Wish I Were Me inspired by talking to people, “just random people,” who admitted they were unhappy with who they were and wished they were someone or something different. “It’s about becoming the person you’re capable of becoming,” he says. See less