DECORUS  ATELIER      OF       FIGURATIVE  ART
 

Pennsylvania native Matt Weigle was certain by the time he was in his late teens that he wanted to be a professional artist. Drawing, painting, writing and music were allcherished parts of his growing up. Matt recognized early on an irrepressible need to work with his hands. As the years passed he leaned towards developing his skills in the visual arts.

 

A significant influence was skateboarding, with its outsider art and music thatcaptured his attention. He began teaching himself to draw by copying these designs and inventing his own images. Matt often sat in class drawing cartoons, sketching his classmates or drawing from imagination. His direction from outsider art to classical art has been a steady path through many years of study with some of todays most famed classical artists and instructors, to hone his painting and drawing skills. In 1997 Matt entered the Pennsylvania School of Art and Design (now called the Pennsylvania College of Art) as a painting and drawing major. His undergraduate days were spent working on abstract art, installations and contemporary styles of art. He became discouraged with the schools emphasis on modernism and its lack of traditional drawing and painting instruction. Following graduation in 2001, Matt followed his desire to improve his classical painting and drawing skills and enrolled in a certificate program at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art.

 

During this time, Matt worked in the Academies Fine Art Gallery hanging shows, adjusting lighting, and assisting professors with lights, props, and posing models. He began teaching drawing to K-12 students at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts using works exhibited in the museum. At the end of his second year he received a purchase prize for a large still life painting that was exhibited in the Annual Student Exhibition. After learning as much as the academy couldoffer concerning classical drawing and painting skills, Matt dropped out of the certificateprogram choosing to follow his teacher/mentor Anthony Visco. The next two years were spent working/ studying with Visco while putting together a body of work that would grant his acceptance into the Academy’s Master’s Program.

 

In 2006 Matt entered the MFA program, graduating in 2008. Upon graduation, he continued his desire to continue classical arts training. In 2009, Matt was admitted to the prestigious Grand Central Academy/Water Street Atelier in 2006 and continued his studies for four more years. He was awarded the Hudson River Fellowship in both 2008 and 2013; a rigorous competition selecting artist’s to study plein air painting in upstate NY and the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

 

Through Matt’s many years of training, he combined his studies with working and selling his art. He worked with nationally recognized artist Anthony Visco assisting in mold making, casting, chasing and clay modeling. While completing his MFA, Matt worked teaching figurative painting under the direction of famed artist/author Al Gury. He has completed numerous commissions, has shown in many galleries and several museums. He recently judged a group show on Long Island and continues to teach throughout NY & Pennsylvania, including his private workshops as well as online. Matt currently lives and works in Queens, New York and is an instructor at Decorus Atelier of Figurative Art.