The success Pat Matthews has enjoyed since he became a full time artist 23 years ago is no longer a secret. Pat’s record of selling just about everything he has painted to an increasingly sophisticated clientele has marked him as a rising star among America’s more talented artists.

Pat’s success is propelled by two unusual gifts. Both immediately relate to how he sees things.

First, there is Pat’s uncanny knack to render the physical world in two, three, and four-point perspectives. And second, there is Pat’s ability to depict nature so as to show a range of hidden colors the casual observer might otherwise miss.

What Pat can see, he can paint. And furthermore, he can paint it uniquely, viscerally, and compellingly.

And meanwhile, as everyone who has followed Pat’s progress notes, Pat himself is a work in progress. His drive to depict reality explains his consistent new levels of originality which continue to attract new admirers and compel ever more discerning collectors to come back for more.

An avid hunter and fisherman from an early age, Pat grew up roaming the woods and lakes of his native Arkansas. His early painting of these experiences marked him as an exceptionally gifted talent.

Later, as a student at the University of Arizona Architectural School, Pat won the prestigious William Wilde Memorial Award as the top designer of his class.

Graduating from architectural school in 1987 Pat apprenticed and received his architectural license. He then developed a flourishing practice as a design architect.

And then, well into becoming a “success,” Pat realized that he had come to a fork in the road…he could continue on as a design architect and be assured of garnering all the honors and prestige that such a career would offer, or he could take the road less traveled and paint the outdoors that, at an early age, had become apart of his very nature.

Paint he did. By 2002, Pat had amassed 48 original oils for his first show in Little Rock. The show was a complete success.

Pat was on his way.

Knowing that only if he would compete with the best would his talent be recognized, Pat moved to Santa Fe in 2002. He quickly found gallery representation. Pat has been busy ever since, doing what he was born to do.

You will rarely find Pat working in his studio. Most times Pat is outdoors in this country and abroad painting the sublime excitement he experiences in nature.

That said, yet the exception proves the rule: Patriotic for all his life, Matthews was moved by the events of 9/11/01 to paint an American Flag on that fateful day. In fact, he painted it over a landscape he had just completed. He made 1,000 prints, sold most of them, and gave the entire proceeds, the original painting, and 343 signed, numbered prints to Battalion 9, the fire station which suffered the greatest loss of firefighter lives. Today Pat’s signature flag paintings represent celebration, hardship, overcoming hardship, and unshakable pride in the freedom and principles the flag represents. Pat’s flag paintings grace homes business, judge’s chambers, and governors’ collections around the country.

The work ethic that energizes Pat keeps him in a perpetual state of learning and growth. 

Catch a rising star... latch on to a seminal artist in the making; Pat Matthews.