Matthew Smith

Matthew grew up in the US Foreign service; through his mother’s deep interest in art he was exposed to modern art in the diverse places he lived, including Polish, Russian (“Non Conformist”, i.e. in protest against the Soviet state’s control of public life & art), Israeli and Bedouin art. On his way to a BA in Politics with a minor in Fine Arts he also studied at the Rhode Island School of Design, the Corcoran Gallery School of Art and the Boston Museum School of Art. Around this time his mother opened a fine crafts gallery, which after a few iterations evolved into a ground-breaking glass fine art gallery, diversifying his direct exposure and inspiration. He studied art (history and studio) and Italian Language in Florence, Italy for a year after college, before diving into studio furniture/artisan woodworking in Northern California. He’s been a resident of Costa Rica since 2017, where painting in oils has gone from a passionate interest to his Path.

Matthew’s work is driven by the beauty in every corner of the world around us, the beauty of the medium itself, and the ability of art to tickle a primordial sense of awe. He’s perpetually searching for visual poetry in the familiar, and the familiar in the new; aspiring to create work that benefits from wisdom traditions while mining a lifetime of seeing, feeling and noticing… for little shards of delight, magic and clarity.

“You are not a drop in the ocean, you are the ocean in a drop” (Rumi)"