Madona y La Luna. Lesly y Luna. someBODIES from Santiago Painting

Matthew Ivan Cherry is an artist whose energies and oeuvre focus on the depiction of the face, head, bust and body. His work contributes to a dialogue on identity, individuality, gender, beauty, the ordinary joe and superhero complex and the self in reference to pop culture as he documents random people he connects with in life, on the streets and via social media. Cherry straddles the worlds of contemporary art practitioners with observational artists interested in figural constructs. His concepts and narratives are integrated and woven with a formal additive/subtractive process layering washes, glazes, marks, and drips that are accumulative and serve as a summation of documented thoughts, impulses and reactions. Balancing representation with abstraction and pure expressive mark making, the blend creates a final object with the process integral to the purity of its intent. Born in the southwest, USA, Cherry is from Arizona and received his BFA from Northern Arizona University where he began painting as a figural artist exploring domestic narratives. After having received his MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he attended with the Presidential Fellowship, he set up his studio practice and began to exhibit in and around Chicago and the Midwest at galleries such as Lyons-Wier, Gescheidle, and fifty-50. He has taught and guest lectured at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, The University of Chicago, Ox-Bow, The Evanston Art Center, Pennsylvania College of Art & Design and the Art Institute of Boston @ Lesley University. His solo exhibition at the Pennsylvania College of Art & Design debuted his titan-sized nude portraits entitled "someBODIES". He has served as the Dean of English, Fine Arts and Humanities at South Suburban College, and the Academic Dean at Pennsylvania College of Art & Design. He is currently serving as an Associate Professor, Chair of Fine Arts & Foundations and the Sr. Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at Lesley University College of Art & Design (formerly the Art Institute of Boston.) His work has been featured in New American Paintings Volume #s 35, 47, 59, and 81 and more recently in Poets and Artists in the July and Sept issues in 2012.