Mat Barber Kennedy

Chicago, IL

For over twenty years Mat has been drawing and painting aging machines, tools and buildings, constructed in layers, adapted over generations, and decaying in pieces. I’m fascinated by junctions of materials and by the corrosive relationship between designed objects and the passage of time. Occupants die or move on, put up signs and go out of business. Children throw stones and touch door frames which get dirty by the handle. Tools are used, bear scars and grow weary with the years of service. People are never directly depicted in my work but they are always present by implication.

I am a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours. In 2008 I was awarded the Turner Medal in London.

Recent Awards/Highlights

2018 

Santa Fe, 3rd place

Dubuque, Second

Amana, Peoples Choice, 2nd place

Telluride, Peoples choice, top seller

Historic Annapolis, Best Historic Architecture, Peoples Choice

Door County, 9th year

2017 Door County Plein Air, 

Telluride Plein air, 2nd Peoples Choice, top seller

Bluff Strokes, Best Historic Dubuque, Best Industrial

Associations

Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts - RSA

Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours.

American Impressionist Society-AIS

Publications

Plein Air Magazine Oct/Nov 2017 issue

American Watercolour weekly 6 August 2018 issue

Website:  http://www.matbarberkennedy.com/