New Orleans Artist Matt Litchliter

Capturing the vibrant essence and movement of a sleepless city is the personal challenge of emerging artist Matt Litchliter.  “My intention is to go beyond what you would typically see in a painting about the city of New Orleans and its culture.  I want to show the feeling one would get walking down the streets, communing with the ghosts, listening to the music.  I want to capture the city’s vibrant music with paint, as it moves through the skin of the performer and onto the instrument and into the surrounding air.”

A New Orleans’ native, Matt’s creative talents were recognized and encouraged early in his life.  While attending Southeastern Louisiana University under the Fine Arts program, Matt expanded his notions of creative design and worked to challenge his conceptual processes by experimenting with mixed media, assemblage and found object wall sculpture.  “I love working with different textural mediums that alter the experience of my work…plywood, fabric, paper and canvas, each conveys its own set of principles and adds flavor to my creative process.”

Each swirl of the brush captures movement, energy and life within Matt’s recent series of New Orleans’ jazz musicians. The viewer is enticed to observe the subtle flutter of the hands as they pass over the instrument as well as the expression of raw energy emitting from each figure. To add to the overall emotion of his work, Matt many times utilizes found objects salvaged from around the city of New Orleans to add emphasis and additional texture to each piece. “I want to show the resilience of this great city; its triumph and its flaws. It’s an emotion and energy that permeates the core of us all.”