I painted these life-sized oil paintings from photos my family inherited. Growing up in a house cluttered with my mother's genealogy research and old photographs spilling from every corner, I had a primal fear of anything Victorian. When I was 20, I had a dream in which an ancestor that died in childhood urged me to color her photograph. I've been coloring ever since.
This is a series I began over a decade ago and continue today with evolved technique and subject. Several of these oil paintings on canvas are on display for the month of October 2016 and available at Ann Nathan Gallery in Chicago.
More info: mattkane.com
We three who knew the safety to breathe
We wait in song and lie
The Funeral of Peter Pan
The girl who dreamt my fate to be our saint
The most beautiful day I’ve had in the saddest month I can
I’m not that sorry you cry awake, my one and only never came
And one day lying on grass, you’ll decide to leave your parents in the past
Sunset oceans above her maple tree
The swaying back of her bright tambourine
When I was young, my hand was held by the glove I wear today
Gumballs under tongues
He used to walk through fields ashamed, divided by the eyes that wave
We surrender sorrow to the tall grass at murky meadow ponds
Twilight twigs scratched on window glass
