ABOUT MATT WOOD
Making art is my primary way of engaging with and processing my lived experience. I work across painting, drawing, photography, and assemblage, often using materials gathered from daily life and from construction sites where I have worked. Whether intimate or large in scale, my work carries emotional force as I respond to life through the act of making itself. Across bodies of work, I trace the arc of that unfolding over time. What begins as a deeply personal process finds expression that resonates with essential human experiences — love and loss, fragility and endurance, beauty and impermanence.
In my practice, I work in collaboration with time and history. I am drawn to how matter ages, decays, and transforms — and to the inherent beauty that emerges through change. I leave objects already marked by use and memory to weather, exposing them to the elements or burying them, allowing natural processes to alter their surface and form. Memory, loss, reclamation, and renewal are not merely themes; they are embedded in the materials and structure of the work itself.
For me, creation is an act of witness and transmutation. Through layering, exposure, burial, preservation, and re-presentation, I examine how experience is absorbed and reshaped over time. I invite viewers into a space where complexity is allowed — where beauty and decay, strength and vulnerability, continuity and change coexist.
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2024 — Sea Change | See Change, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, CT
1995 — Group Exhibition, Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, CT
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2024 — Saving the Planet, One Art Masterpiece at a Time, Studio Hill Gallery, Woodbury, CT
2024 — Matt Wood Exhibit, The Hen’s Nest Gallery, Washington Depot, CT
2021 — Travel, Woodbury Public Library Gallery, Woodbury, CT
2010 — One Thing… [mostly], Good News Café & Gallery, Woodbury, CT
2009 — Solo Exhibition, Good News Café & Gallery, Woodbury, CT
2008 — Solo Exhibition, Good News Café & Gallery, Woodbury, CT
2007 — Solo Exhibition, Good News Café & Gallery, Woodbury, CT
2002 — Solo Exhibition, Good News Café & Gallery, Woodbury, CT
2002 — Solo Exhibition, Cornwall Inn, Cornwall, CT
2001 — Solo Exhibition, Woodbury Antiques and Fine Art, Woodbury, CT
2000 — Solo Exhibition, The Gallery, London, England
1998 — Solo Exhibition, Picture This, Westport, CT
1998 — Solo Exhibition, Westport Gallery, Westport, CT
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2026 — Nature Interpreted, Five Points Gallery, Torrington, CT
2026 — Annual Holiday Group Art Show & 5th Anniversary, Studio Hill Gallery, Woodbury, CT
2024 — Group Exhibition, The Hen’s Nest Gallery, Washington Depot, CT
2023 — Group Exhibition, Byrde + the b, Litchfield, CT
2021 — Spring Group Art Show, Studio Hill Gallery, Woodbury, CT
2021 — Worldview, Vast and Intimate (Duo exhibition with Vincent Giarrano), Studio Hill Gallery, Woodbury, CT
2005 — Group Exhibition, Schumacher Gallery, Westover School, Middlebury, CT
2004 — Group Exhibition, Gunn Memorial Library, Washington, CT
2004 — Group Exhibition, NYDAI, Brooklyn, NY
2004 — Murals / Trompe l’Oeil / Faux Finishes Exhibition, Gunn Memorial Library Stairway Gallery, Washington Depot, CT
2003 — Group Exhibition, Minor Memorial Library, Roxbury, CT
2002 — Take Home a Nude, Sotheby’s, New York, NY
1995 — Splendid Spirit (Special Olympic World Games), New Haven, CT
1994 — Negative Energy, Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT
1993 — Curator’s Choice, Connecticut Invitational III, John Slade Ely House, New Haven, CT
1993 — Subway Series, Lakes Art Center, Okoboji, IA
1991 — Group Exhibition, Books and Co., Manhattan, NY
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2025 — Fundraiser for a Cause, Studio Hill Gallery, Woodbury, CT
2004 — Benefit Exhibition, Flanders Nature Center, Woodbury, CT
2004 — Benefit Exhibition, Freeport Educational Foundation, Freeport, ME
1996–1999, 2004 — Nature Center Benefit Exhibition, Westport, CT
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2011 — Designer / Director, 4,500 sq ft mural, After-School Arts Program, Torrington, CT
2007 — Mural, Main Dining Room, Mayflower Inn & Spa, Washington, CT
2006 — Frescoes and Murals, Spa Expansion, Mayflower Inn & Spa, Washington, CT
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2026 — Nature Interpreted, Five Points Gallery, Torrington, CT
2024 — Saving the Planet, One Art Masterpiece at a Time, Studio Hill Gallery, Woodbury, CT
2024 — Exploring the Creative Process, Leroy Anderson House, Woodbury, CT
2005 — Artist Lecture, Flanders Nature Center & Land Trust, Woodbury, CT
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2023 — Juror’s Choice Award, Arts Alliance of Woodbury Members Exhibition
1995 — Visiting Artist Fellowship, Weir Farm National Historical Park
1994 — First Place, Annual Photography Exhibition, Nature Center, Westport, CT
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“How Art Captures Feelings About a Changing Environment.” WSHU Public Radio, 2024.
“Matt Wood, Artist.” The Nice Niche, 2015.
“Matt Wood, The Master Muralist.” Litchfield Magazine, 2013.
Artwork featured on the television series Thirtysomething.
Travel + Leisure Magazine, Best Of Issue, 2007.
Passport Magazine (Litchfield County Times), Autumn 2007.
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For Love (oil on canvas) — Private Collection, Darien, CT
NYC, Milky Way (oil on canvas) — Private Collection, Hilton Head Island, SC
Withering (oil on canvas) — Private Collection, New York, NY
Untitled (oil on canvas) — Private Collection, Weston, CT
Self Portrait (oil on canvas) — Private Collection, Washington, CT
Storm (oil on canvas) — Private Collection, Washington, CT
Green Sea (oil on wood) — Private Collection, Darien, CT
Kate’s Piece (oil on canvas) — Private Collection, Columbus, NC
Ship of Dreams (charcoal, acrylic, dirt on museum board) — Private Collection, Nantucket, MA
HMJ (oil on canvas) — Private Collection, Washington, CT
Paradise, Baghdad (oil on canvas) — Private Collection, Palm Beach, FL
Niagara (pastel on paper) — Private Collection, Woodbury, CT
Fullspeed (oil on wood) — Private Collection, Santa Clarita, CA
(CV credit: Willow Gray)