Toronto-based painter Matt Bahen is known for his thick impasto paintings, which have many layers of interpretation. Influenced by literature, primarily the writings of fiction authors such as Cormac McCarthy, T.S Eliot, and Joseph Conrad, Bahen aspires to emulate the power of metaphors and allegories with paint. Bahen does not consider his subject landscape in the traditional sense; his viewpoint is not one that we see in nature, but rather skirts the balance between real and imagined in a way that leaves the viewer to decipher. This inherent tension and uncertainty typifies his work.
Matt Bahen was born in 1979 in Toronto, and was raised in Schomberg, Ontario. He received his BFA from the Ontario College of Art in 2002. In 2013, his solo exhibition, Gravity's Faith, was held at the MacLaren Art Centre in Barrie. Bahen is represented in Toronto, Edmonton, and New York. His work is in the permanent collections of the Art Gallery of Hamilton, Ontario College of Art and Design, Canadian National Landscaping Association, BMO Financial Group, CIBC, and various financial institutions. In 2022, Bahen had a solo exhibition at Glenhyrst Art Gallery in Brantford, Ontario. In April 2024, Coming Down the Mountain, a solo exhibitiion by Matt Bahen opens at The McIntosh Gallery at Western University.