Matthew Whitney (he/his/him) is a multidisciplinary artist, educator, and pedestrian. He works between drawing, painting, photography, collage, video, performance, and group facilitation, with a focus on the metaphorical and spiritual power generated through the everyday rhythms of walking, making things, and stillness. He has a BA in Art from Whitworth University and an MFA in Visual Art from Vermont College of Fine Arts. He currently serves as Creative Director at Spiritual Directors International.
Artist Statement
My work as an artist is an ongoing exploration into the connections between people, places, and the everyday, manifesting as processes of walking, mapping, and mark-making. I often allow and introduce flawed conditions in which a new path can emerge, a mistake can surprise, or a failure offers opportunity. It’s the freedom that comes with wandering a city street grid even when that grid paradoxically determines our paths. I am seeking open fields in pre-determined concrete roads. Within the intersections and beneath our collective pavements, new possibilities reveal themselves.
My work arises from a lifelong pursuit of experience rather than representation. Influenced by Czesław Miłosz’s reflection on William Blake – an ever-seeking chase after self-renewing meaning – I understand myself as an “ever-seeker,” attentive to this one life as it unfolds through the body, the senses, and lived encounter.
I distinguish experience from thought. Thought organizes, categorizes, narrates; experience disrupts. It is felt before it is understood. Art, for me, is not primarily an object or a story, but a site where experience can re-emerge – through touch, intuition, material resistance, and play. In moments when thinking recedes, making becomes sensory and immediate, and occasionally something ineffable appears – beauty, sublimity, or what one might call the sacred.
My earlier work centered on walking as a practice of attention: personal cartographies that traced the relationship between body and ground, often within the urban grid of Seattle. I seek to narrow the gap between referent and experience, allowing the work to function less as record and more as invitation.
The current body of work begins with crumpled paper. Creases, flaws, tears, and folds are the starting condition, which mirror how we inhabit our bodies, our histories, and our cultures. Through acts of manipulation, the randomized structure of the paper determines the composition, and a kind of order emerges from unpredictability.
These works function as openings, seeking to invite an encounter that is tactile, open-ended, and participatory. I embrace the flaws, the brokenness – even the chaotic is approached as a logic we may learn to meet with curiosity, trust, and care.
Land Acknowledgment
My walking practice, my studio practice, and my home all benefit from the land on which I live and work. I acknowledge this land as stewarded and blessed by the first people of Seattle, the Duwamish People. I offer gratitude to the land itself and the Duwamish Tribe, and I support their fight for federal recognition and reparations through the Real Rent Duwamish movement.
CV – Selected Exhibits and Appointments
Employment:
2018-present, Creative Director, Spiritual Directors International, Seattle, WA.
2016-2018, Adjunct Instructor (Foundations, Photo, and Visual Culture), Seattle Pacific University, Seattle, WA.
2017, Adjunct Instructor (Art Appreciation and Photo), Seattle Central College, WA.
2015, Adjunct Instructor (Digital Art and Design), South Seattle College, WA.
2013-2016, Adjunct Instructor (Visual Art and Photo), Northwest University, Kirkland, WA.
Education:
2019-2020, 18-month Spiritual Guidance Certification, Spiritual Guidance Training Institute, Chicago, Illinois.
2019-2020, Facilitator, Interspiritual Meditation, Spiritual Paths.
2010-2012 MFA, Vermont College of Fine Arts, Montpelier, Vermont.
1996-2000 BA, Whitworth University, Spokane, Washington.
Select Solo and Group Exhibitions:
2026
Seeking That Shimmering Weave (solo exhibit), James K. Schmidt Gallery, Principia College, Elsah, Il.
EMERGENCE (group juried exhibit), Saranac Art Projects, Spokane, WA.
Recorded Wanderings (group exhibit), Sojourn Arts, Louisville, KY.
2022
Density/Scarcity, online group exhibition, curated by Nicole Lenzi (https://expandeddrawingpractices.blogspot.com/)
2019
Solo Exhibition, Whitworth University – upcoming November 2019.
2018
Drawn Out (group exhibit), SPAC Gallery, Seattle Pacific University, Seattle, WA.
Centers of Gravity (juried group exhibit), Shoreline City Hall, Shoreline, WA.
Seattle Public Utilities Portable Works – purchase of two drawings. Office of Arts and Culture, City of Seattle.
2017
Contemplative Geographies (solo exhibit), Trinity Western University, Langley, British Columbia.
Works on Paper (group exhibit juried by Jane Panetta, Whitney Museum of Art), Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts and Sciences, Long Beach Township, NJ.
Making (group exhibition, selection of “Clairvoyance” map drawing, juried by Devon Tsuno), Duke and Heritage Art Galleries, Azusa Pacific University, Azusa, CA.
Performance of Place (group exhibition, “Clairvoyance” map drawing), Shoreline City Hall Gallery, Shoreline, WA.
Responding to Violence and the Gun (group exhibtion of WARZONE drawings), Sojourn Arts Gallery, Louisville, KT.
Search for Meaning (juried selection of Movement in Kind drawing), Fine Arts Building, Seattle University.
2016
Between Two Lines, (juried selection of several map drawings), (SCENE) Metrospace, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI.
2015
Movement in Kind (solo exhibition of works), Mainframe Shop, Seattle, WA.
Feelers, BCA Drawing 2015 (group exhibit juried by Susan Metrician), Boston Center for the Arts, October 2015.
Gallery4Culture, (solo exhibition of works), upcoming October 2015, Seattle, WA.
Fireside Gallery, Mt. Hood Community College, (solo exhibition of works), Gresham, OR.
415 Westlake (solo exhibition of works), Seattle, WA.
2014
Said Clairvoyance (group exhibit with Scott Kolbo and Tomoko Suzuki-Meyer), Mainframe Art Gallery, Seattle, WA.
Unmarked Crosswalk (solo exhibit of works and public lecture), Argue Health and Science Center, Northwest University, Kirkland, WA.
2013
“First” 1-minute Online Video Exhibit, (juried selection of “New Direction” video), Hunger Mountain Magazine, Montpelier, VT.
Fuller Seminary Northwest, (solo exhibition of works), Seattle, WA.
2012
Language and the City, (juried selection of “Clairvoyance” map drawing), Studio Couture Detroit, Detroit, MI (juried)
2011
Matter and Spirit, (juried selection of “Sidewalk” painting and video installation), curated by Patty Wickman, Biola University, Los Angeles.
2010
27th Juried Open Exhibit, (juried selection of “Estrangement” drawing), Visual Arts Alliance, 27th Juried Open Exhibit, curated by Kevin Carter, Houston, TX.
2009
The Vancouver Project II, (inclusion of painted sculptures in group exhibit), Lookout Gallery, Regent College, Vancouver, British Columbia.
CULTURE? (juried selection of “Blue in a Happy Way” painting), curated by Daniell A. Siedell, Bethel University, Minneapolis, MN.
2008
The Vancouver Project II, (inclusion of three paintings in group exhibit), Lookout Gallery, Regent College, Vancouver, British Columbia.
The Sleep of Faith, (solo exhibition of new paintings), Marni Muir Gallery, Seattle, WA.
Orange Splot Gallery (solo exhibition of paintings), Orange Splot Gallery, Seattle, WA.
2007
Art Kudos International Juried Art Competition & Exhibition, (web-based online juried exhibit).
Live Nude Goats Collaborative (group exhibit), Studio G, Tashiro-Kaplan Building, Seattle, WA.
BASECAMP: 14th Annual Juried Art Exhibit (juried selection of painting), curated by Suzanne Beal, Enumclaw, WA.
16th Annual Juried Art Exhibit (juried selection of painting), Arts Council of Snohomish County, Everett, WA.
2006
LIGHT National Exhibition (juried selection of painting), curated by Afif Gallery, White Plains, NY.
Mukilteo Lighthouse Festival (juried selection of painting), Mukilteo, WA.
Whitworth College Alumni Exhibit (juried selection of painting), Spokane, WA.
Live Nude Goats Collaborative (group exhibit), Gallery 1412, Seattle, WA.
Publications:
2017
EXPANDED – Contemporary Drawing Practices, January 8, 2017, web.
Presence Journal International (cover art reproduction of Distance painting), Winter 2017, print.
2016
SEEN Journal (article, The Movement of Space, along with multiple images), Summer 2016, print.
2015
The Stranger (recommendation of ‘Movement in Kind’ exhibit by The Stranger Things to Do on Slog), December 15, 2015, web.
The Stranger (recommendation of ‘A Line Amongst Other Lines’ exhibit by Jen Graves on Slog), October 1, 2015, web.
Arcade Northwest (recommendation of ‘A Line Amongst Other Lines’ exhibit), October 1, 2015, web.
2014
Conspire Magazine (reproduction of several paintings), Fall 2014, print.
2013
Institute for Theology and Northwest Culture C&C Journal (essay and artwork), web.
2012
Presence Journal International (reproduction of “Clairvoyance” drawing), Fall 2012, print.
2011
Seattle Times, “Life’s Struggles Shown in Art at Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission,” February 2011, print and online.