MATT BAHEN: PAINTER, PROPHET, MAGICIAN
Toronto-based painter Matt Bahen's primary influence is literature. He strives to interpret the power of metaphor and allegory with paint. Bahen listens to audiobooks while working in his studio and is an avid reader of fiction, in particular the writings of Cormac McCarthy, T.S. Eliot and Joseph Conrad. His impastoed surfaces and stark compositions are at once unsettling and highly engaging. Using various motifs including water, fire and animals, Bahen constructs individual