Matt Beard
Artist.
Occasional writer.
Currently lives in Humboldt County, CA.
Committed to painting the entire California Coast.
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MY STORY
Growing up surfing the California coast, hunting the elusive “secret” spot, memorizing entries from Bank Wright’s classic Surfing California, the diverse beauty of this state’s coastline has always captivated me, and continues to inspire my artwork to this day.
For over 20 years I've been working toward painting the entire coastline of this beautiful state. It's a slow and winding road though... and sometimes it's no road at all.
I know I'll never be able to say I've painted every piece of this coast, but I can say that I've been more intentional about painting the entire coastline than any artist I've ever come across.
As a third-generation Californian, I moved to the Northern California coast nearly 30 years ago and I've been traveling the length of the state visiting family and friends scattered up and down the coast ever since. What started out as looking for waves has turned into... well, I'm still looking for waves, I'm just painting every bend and cove that catches my eye along the way now.
I spend weeks at a time on the road, living a gloriously unkempt life just to explore the nooks and coves I've not yet seen. I've hiked for miles, far off the beaten paths. I've painted from the side of the busy highway. I've painted from boats, climbed on rooftops, crawled over locked gates, edged between barbed wire, suffered the nuisance of ticks, poison oak, biting ants, high winds... you get the idea. All of this to bring you these visions of California's Coast.
I’m currently residing on the beautifully remote Humboldt coast of Northern California with my wife and three kids. We dig it here. Beaches, forests, rocks, rivers and all that.
I graduated from Humboldt State University in 1998 with a major in Studio Art and minor in Philosophy. Good grief. After that came years of part-time jobs: construction, janitor, grocery store beer and dog food stocker, picture framer, pizza maker, dishwasher, substitute teacher... you get the idea. Always avoiding any job that tried to pull me in to full time work in order to remain focused on making my art, which has been shown and published in various periodicals worldwide, including The Surfer’s Journal (Vol. 17, #3).
Exploration is a constant theme. I tend to work in series, where each one contains a concept at its core that I wanted to visually explore. Just like travelling an unfamiliar stretch of coastline, always curious about what lies around the next bend, so it is with my art.
So it’s appropriate that by far the longest running thread in my visual explorations has been the California coast. The moods, topographies, geologies, and our interaction with it all is varied enough to inspire several lifetimes of art. I’m doing all that I can with the short time I have left.
Thank you for visiting my site, I hope you enjoy your explorations here, and I look forward to connecting with you sometime down the line.